182
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
Months since I instructed you to send these vouchers to Wash- ington so that our members of Congress could have attended to the matter, one of whom I would have appointed agent for the State. Had you complied with my instructions, the money woula have been placed in our Treasury immediately; we would have redeemed our Treasury Warrants, and our Rangers would not have been compelled to sell their claims on the streets from 75 to 90 cents on the dollar. These are some of the results of your efforts to thwart the Executive, and yet you seem determined to pursue this ruinous policy. The Executive has in this case not asked you to place these vouchers in the hands of a partizan or favorite of his own; but has chosen a gentleman connected with your own office, and one than whom no man is better qualified, having been connected with the management of the fiscal affairs of the State for more than 19 years and to whose habits no earthly objection can be raised, so far as I believe. Nothing but a determined will to still further embarrass the finances of the State can be presented as your reason, if you still refuse to place these vouchers in Mr. Durham's hands. Having already been the cause of all the delay and expense incurred, I had trusted that you would no longer subject the State to a 10 % debt and the Rangers to a heavy discount on their already small pay for services in defence of the frontier, and individual loss to all those who have served the Country as soldiers, or relied on its faith. Sam Houston. [Endorsed] : No. 6141 .General Sam Houston, Nevember 6th, 1860. Answered. 1Comptrollers' Letters; Financial Papers,· also Executive Record Book No. 278, p. 232, Texas State Library. To FRANKLIN L. DENISON 1 Executive Department, Austin, Texas, Nov. 7th, 1860. Franklin L. Denison, Esq., Sir: Upon the 19th of July last, as I informed you, the Execu- tive made requisition upon the Secretary of the Interior, the Department having exclusive control over Indian affairs, for the extradition of the Indian Johnson. In a letter just received from the Hon. Jacob Thompson, Secre- tary of ·the Interior, in reply to said requisition, the following sug- gestions are made. It is "feared that his (Johnson's) people
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