WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1860
97
masters. One has already been appointed upon whose simple requisition $70,000 was drawn.from the Treasury upon your war- rant. The fact that I did not appoint a pay master, and that you went on and paid the troops without one, does not take from me the power of appointment. If it existed in the case of the troops paid o"ff by Major Swisher, under his appointment of January last, it still exists. The payment of the troops thus far paid by you, was neither by my direction nor by my sanction. My orders to you were wholly in reference to the kind of payment to be made, not to the mode of payment. Had you in taking the re- sponsibility of paying the troops, at the same time carried out the law and regarded the public interest, I would have been disposed from motives of economy, not to appoint a pay master, but being satisfied that you have settled the accounts of officers without sufficient vouchers-that you have paid the Rio Grande troops for their entire term of service, under the joint resolution giving them the same pay as troops in the U. S. Army, when they were mustered out of service, and remustered under the Regiment Bill prescribing their pay at rates much lower. You have allowed prices for the purchase of mules, arms &c. exhorbitant and ex- travagant. For me to hesitate longer in the discharge of my duty, would prove me derelict. So far as in my power lies, I desire to protect the Treasury. You seem inclined to bolster yourself with the fact that I really manifested confidence in your integrity by resigning certain war- rants. I did not know that you deemed your position so weak that the mere fact of my taking it for granted you would do your duty, is to be heralded with a flourish of trumpets. Having found that you would not do what I had the right to expect of you as an officer, I must decline giving my signature until I am satisfied that the law has not been violated. You allude to the fact that I approve an account of $30,000 on your bare assertion that it was correct, as an evidence that I had not lost confidence in your honesty, and you charge me with inconsistency in refusing to approve a soldier's claim on your assertion that it was correct. In regard to the $30,000 claim, I knew it to be correct of my own knowledge, while i-n making out the soldiers' claims I know that you have acted in violation of express laws, and my orders based on them, and that you are endeavoring, for some purpose known to yourself, to pay more than the law allows. But speaking of inconsistency, how can you reconcile the facts, that last winter I appointed Captain Swisher pay master to pay
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