WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1842
211
hundred and ninety thousand four hundred and seventy dollars in promissory notes, besides four thousand two hundred and fifty eight dollars in Exchequer bills were appropriated to sustain the establishment. For the service of the present year, Congress appropriated only five thousand dollars in Exchequer bills, with- out making any allowance for their depreciation-nor did they leave any discretion with the Executive to sustain this important branch of the government. Texas, at this time, furnishes the singular fact of a government without the means of conveying intelligence or distributing the laws throughout the Republic. It is doubtless the only community on earth at this time purporting to be a nation, that is similarly situated. Instead of inquiring into the causes which have produced this state of things and the reasons which enforce them upon the country it is imputed to the delinquency of the administration. It is for Congress to de- termine whether means can be devised; and if they can, whether they will be employed in sustaining the mail establishment. There is reason to believe that the proceeds arising from a well regulated mail establishment would go far towards defraying the expenses incident to its maintenance. The diffusion of general intelligence throughout a country like ours, subject to frequent causes of excitement on the frontier, is of great importance. The ready circulation of intelligence would prevent much confusion and commotion throughout the country and enable the Executive to command the means of its defence with some degree of certainty; whereas he has had to rely alone upon the procurement of ex- presses without the means at his command of even defraying their expenses while in service. When, indeed, he could obtain them at all they had to rely upon the future ability of the government for compensation. A free government cannot exist without mails. -At the called session in June, _the attention of the Honorable Congress was most earnestly invoked to this subject, but met with no favorable response, and has therefore remained neg- lected up to this time for the want of means, though with great exertions, some of the principal routes have been partially main- tained. Another subject of some importance in the present crisis, I deem it my duty to present to the Honorable Congress. In the month of March last, during the incursion of the enemy, under the provisions of the Constitution, the President felt it to be his imperative duty to order a removal of the archives and Heads of
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