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465
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1842
their country, will give them adhesion-and union may render them more formidable than we have found them in times past. It will, at all events, arouse their energies, incite them to the last effort, inflict great annoyance upon us, and withdraw the atten- tion of our citizens from the pursuits and profits of husbandry. Texas only requires peace to make her truly prosperous and respectable. Peace will bring with it every advantage. All that is needful to secure individual wealth is well directed industry- and the policy that will permit the farmer and the mechanic to employ their labor in peace, is the only policy that can establish and improve our country. Without peace, labor, and industry, we must, with all the boundless natural advantages of Texas, re- main comparatively poor and embarrassed. Tbe present moment is, to my apprehension, the most unfor- tunate of all others, for the awakening of this subject. Our fellow citizens taken at Santa Fe,3 if they still survive, are prison- ers in the city of Mexico, at the mercy of the Mexicans. Every possible means at my command has been employed to obtain their release and restoration to their friends and country. Should the proposed project reach the Mexican capital, in the character of a legislative act, no earthly interposition can insure their libera- tion; and I should deem it the most probable of all other events, that they would be executed by order of the authorities of the country-and should they e:ven escape this, I would apprehend their destruction by the populace. In a country like Mexico, demagogues are never wanting to excite the fury and stimulate the bad passions of those to whose favor they seek to commend themselves. I am therefore satisfied, that if any measure could produce injury to Texas, and endanger the lives, of our noble, generous and brave fellow citizens, whose cruel captivity we now deplore, it would be the passage of this bill. Surely their circum- stances, invoke of the Honorable Congress calm and careful de- liberation. Sam Houston. 1 "Messages of the Presidents," Congressional Pa.pers; also Executive Rec- ord Book, No. 40, pp. 32-34, Texas State Library. E. D. Adams (ed.), British Co1·respondence Concerning Texas, 1888-1846, pp. 603-607. 2 For brief discussions of this boundary problem in 1842, see Brown, His- to111 of Texas, II, 203-204, and Yoakum, History of Texas, II, 3-13. 3 Many accounts have been written of the Santa Fe Expedition. For brief accounts see Yoakum, II, 321-343: Wooten (ed.), Com1n·oh1msi11Q History of Texas, I, 368-390; Bancroft, N01·th Mcxica,i States a11d Texas, II, 333-337;
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