WruTINGs OF SAM HousToN, 1842
523.
their bodies mangled and their corpses left unburied. Th~ butchery of McAllister, Galphin, Yates, and ·others appeal t<>: heaven and this nation for retribution upon the heads of their inhuman murderers. You may allege that you did not authorize the perpetration. of these outrages, committed upon men who had violated no rule of law known to this civilized age. This will be no excuse for you. Your sanction of these acts is as culpable as their perpetra- tion was degrading to their authors. Their detention as prison- ers by you may gratify the malignity of little minds; but the just, the chivalric, the brave, and the generous of all nations may pity, but must despise your conduct. Had it not been for the faithless professions tendered to them and their too ready belief, they could have maintained their position against all the forces of northern Mexico, and, if necessary, could have made good their retreat to their homes, defying the "generous effort of the people of New Mexico." Your conduct on this occasion will present your humanity and sense of propriety in very awkward contrast with the treatment extended to you and your followers after the victory of San Jacinto, being not, as you suppose, one of the "freaks of fortune," but one of the accomplishments of that destiny which will mark the course of Texas until the diffi- culties between the two countries shall be satisfactorily adjusted. But you declare you will not relax your exertions until you have subjugated Texas; that you have "weighed its possible value," and that you are perfectly aware of the magnitude of the task you have undertaken; that you "will not permit a Colossus within the limits of Mexico;" that our title is that of "theft and usurpation;" and that "the honor of the Mexican nation demands of you the reclamation of Texas;" that "if it were an unpro- ductive waste, useless, sterile, yielding nothing desirable, and abounding in nothing but thorns to wound the feet of travelers," you would not permit it to exist an independent government, in derision of your national character, your hearths and your indi- viduality. Allow me to assure you that our title to Texas has a high sanction; that of purchase - because we have performed our conditions;- that of conquest - and because we have been victorious. It is ours because you cannot subdue us; it has been consecrated ours by the blood of our martyred pntriots; it is ours by the claims of patriotism, superior intelligence, and un- subduable courage. It is not a sterile waste, nor a desert; it is
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