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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 184,2
520
took the Alamo, with the town, when it was defended by seventeen hundred regular troops of Mexico - was again taken prisoner, at San Jacinto, after he had violated his parole of honor, by which he forfeited his life to the law of arms. Yet such was the lenity of the Texians, that even he was spared, thereby interpos- ing mercy to prevent reclamation being made for the brave Tex- ians perfidiously massacred. From the 5th of May (1836), I had no connection with the encampment, nor with the treatment which the prisoners received, until the month of October, when I was inducted into the office of chief magistrate of the nation. It is true that you were chained to an iron bar; but not until an attempt had been made to release you, with your knowledge and assent. A vessel had arrived at Orozimbo, on the Brazos, where you were confined. In the possession of its captain were found wines and liquors mixed with poison for the purpose of poisoning the officers and guard in whose charge you were, thereby insuring your escape. In consequence of the sensation produced by this circumstance, you were confined and treated in the manner you have so pa- thetically portrayed. While confined by my wound in San Augustine, I learned that it was the intention of the army to take you to the theater of Fannin's massacre and there to have you executed. Upon the ad- vertisement of this fact, I immediately sent an express to the army, solemnly protesting against your further molestation, or any action which might not recognize you as a prisoner of war. Your recent communications have necessarily awakened ad- vertency to these facts; otherwise they would have remained unrecited by me. Any part which I bore in these transactions is not related in the egotistical style of your communication; it is done alone for the purpose of presenting the lights of history. You have sought to darken its shades, and appeal to the sym- pathies, and would command the admiration of mankind, and have even invoked the prismatic tints of romance. Now, the tribunal to which you have appealed will have an opportunity of contrasting the treatment which you and the pris- oners taken at San Jacinto received, with that of those who have fallen within your power, and particularly those perfidiously be- trayed on a recent trading excursion to Santa Fe. You have endeavored to give the expedition the complexion of an invading movement upon the rights of Mexico. To believe you serious in the idle display of words on this occasion, would be presenting
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