WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1842
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the objects of the Honorable James Webb, and the transaction of the public business. Sam Houston 1 Domestic Co1·respo11dence, Texas State Library. James Webb was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1792. He received a good education and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1816. . He removed to Jones County, Georgia, in 1819, and to Florida in 1821. In 1832 he was appointed United States District Judge for Florida. He held his court at Tallahassee and Key 'West. In 1838 he came to Texas and located at Houston, but soon afterward settled at Austin. President Lamar appointed him Attorney General on November 18, 1839, and sent him in company with Barnard E. Bee as Minister and Agent to the City of Mexico. He was elected senator to the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Congresses (1841-1844), representing the districts of Bastrop, Fayette, Gonzales and Travis. During these congresses he served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate and was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. In 1844, he rnturned to the bar and practised in copartnership with Judge F. A. Morris, and later with Judge William S. Oldham. He was an active worker in the cause of annexation. On the organization of the judiciary of the State of Texas in 1846, he was appointed judge of the Fourteenth Judicial District, a posi- tion he held at the time of his death, November 1, 1856, while he was on his way to hold court at Goliad. He is buried in the city cemetery at Goliad. See James D. Lynch, The Bench and Bar of Texas, 202-203; J. H. Davenport, The Histo1-y of the Siwreme Cottrt of Texas, 307; Z. T. Fulmore, Histo1·y and Geog1·aphy of Texas as Told in County Names, 206; La.mar Papers ( Six volumes, passim) ; E. C. Barker (ed.), Readings in Texas History, 362; E. W .Winkler (ed.), See1·et Jounu.tls of the Senate, Rep1tblic of Texas, 1836-1845, 135, 139, 155, 207, 230.
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TO [ALPHONSE] DE SALIGNY 1
City of Houston, Texas, July 8th 1842.
To M. de Saligny, My dear Sir,
I am filled with emotions of the most painful sympathy by the intelligence, this moment received, of the death of your father. I can understand and appreciate the magnitude of the bereavement and the deep -deep anguish with which your soul must be overwhelmed. Permit me, therefore, my very dear friend, to tender you within your affliction my most respectful and heartfelt condolence. In your sorrow you have my sym- pathy - as in your health and happiness you have ever had my best wishes. I regret to learn in addition, my dear Sir, that your health is precarious, and that you will probably find it necessary to go abroad to reestablish it. While however, I, in common with your
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