WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1842
161
necessity. The assistance of my Cabinet ·will be for the future not only desirable, but indispensable to the administration of public business. My health is so bad that I have to employ an amanuensis. Sam Houston. [Endorsed] : Requests me to come to Houston. I have done everything necessary in the Department of State, though a good deal absent from Houston during the summer. The claims of my family I cannot wholly pretermit. General Houston promised when I took the office I should be paid in par funds. This has not been done, and I have been obligecl to do something for a support aside from office.-A. J. N0TE.-On the receipt of the above letter I started for Houston. On the way, I learned the President, in a pet at that place, had packed up and gone to Washington on the Brazos, whither I fol- lowed him shortly afterward, and was not again absent from the seat of Government except on public business during my three years' secretaryship. The President and all the other members of the Cabinet were frequently absent, and I have been conse- quently for months left to administer the Government "solitary and alone." (1845) 1 Anson Jones, 1vlemoranda and Official Correspondence, Republic of Texas, pp. 196-197. See Houston's Proclamation of his appointment of Anson Jones as Minister to the United States, June 30, 1838. 2 See Houston to George 'W. Terrell, May 16, 1842.
TO CAPTAIN [CHARLES] ELLIOT 1
Unofficial
City of Houston, 20th Sept. 1842
My Dear Sir_. Owing to late events on our frontier, I would be very happy to see you here, if you could with convenience to yourself visit Houston. I will write to the American Charge d' Affaires [H.B.M.] ~ and request him, as well as yourself (un- officially) to do Texas and myself the favor of coming that I may have the honor & favor of a conference with you Gentlemen.
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