The Writings of Sam Houston, Volume III

WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1842

97

exhibit of all the orders, instructions and correspondence emanat- ing from the Executive or the Department of War, which, have even the most remote reference to the removal of the national archives from the City of Austin; and, also, of all the corre- spondence with or addressed to the Executive or Departme11t of War, on the same subject, by the people of Travis, or Travis and Bastrop counties, in their collective or individual capacity; as likewise of all proceedings and resolutions in public meetings, by the said citizens or any portion of them, as far as they have been communicated to or are known to the Executive;- with the ex- ception only of the orders issued by Lieutenant Colonel Wallace:: for the detention and search of all wagons, and public and private property at the town of Bastrop, which might attempt to pass the said town from the direction of the City of Austin, without a passport in the French language; and, also, of certain orders of Colonel Henry Jones, 3 posted up in the City of Austin, in open defiance and contempt of the orders of the Secretary of War, which he (the said Colonel Henry Jones) first tore down. Copies of these two papers will be laid before your Honorable Body at the earliest day practicable- they having, it is believed, been merely mislaid. Before your adjournment it may also possibly be in my power to present to the Senate copies of various letters written by Colonel Hen:ry Jones, relating to this subject. Your Honorable Body will, from a perusal of the accompanying documents, not only perceive, in the circumstances of the times, the condition of the country, and the particular events which we had then as well as now to anticipate and provide against, full and sufficient cause for the promulgation of the or~er for the removal of the government archives; but will perceive, also, the necessity of some legislative action to subdue that treasonable and insurrectionary spirit which has been so openly manifested in various quarters; and which, in this case, has arrested the execution of an order designed to secure from probable destruc- tion what the country is too poor to lose, and what the wealth of the world could never restore. Sam Houston 1 "Messages of the Presidents," Congressional Papers, Sixth Congress; also, Executive Record Boole, No. 40, p. 116. ::colonel William S. Wallace was Lieutenant Colonel of the 4th Regiment of Texas Volunteers. For the order mentioned here, see Yoakum, Hi:;tory of TexC1s, II, 355. 3 See Houston to Colonel Henry Jones, April 4, 1842.

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