WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1842
514
individuals. Had your response regarded them in the light in which they were presented to you it would have superseded the necessity of any notice from me; but as you have thought proper to laud my conduct as an individual and refer to transactions connected with this country with which I had official identity - and which I also at this time possess- and as you have taken the liberty to an unwarranted extent, to animadvert upon circum- stances connected with Texas as a nation, I find myself impelled by a sense of duty to refute a portion of the calumnies which you hav~ presented to the world, under the sanction of your official averment. You seem to have seized upon the pretext of confidential com- munications unknown to the officers of this government, and un- known to the world until divulged by you for the purpose of manufacturing a capital of popularity at home, and which you have submitted to the world as a manifesto in behalf of what you are pleased to term the rights of a great nation, " by so many titles respectable." Whatever opinion you may have entertained in relation to the difficulties existing between Mexico and Texas, cannot materially vary the facts or the principles involved, nor will they materially influence the decision of mankind upon the justice of our cause. Decency and self-respect, at least, should have induced on your part the pursuit of a course different from that you have adopted. The abuse and ribald epithets you have applied to the citizens of this country, as weli as those of the Mississippi Valley of the United States, are doubtless characteristic of the individual who gave them utterance. So far as the people of this country are concerned, I shall refer mankind to a history of facts and circumstances connected with the settlement of the country. I shall pass with slight notice, your remarks relative to the people of the United States. So far as our origin is connected with them, and the unity of sympathy exists, we are proud to hail them as our kindred, - kindred in blood, kindred in laws, kindred in all the ennobling attributes of humanity. They will hear your ill taunts of defiance with the same contempt and de- rision that Texians regard your silly gasconade. If they have heretofore sympathized with us, in our struggle for liberty and independence, it was from a knowledge of the fact that we had been oppressed and deceived by Mexico, and that the cause in which we were engaged was that of humanity, struggling against usurpation and despotism.
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