265
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1843
purpose of their transportation as one wagon could bring away all their ashes. A communication of some import, from which I submit an ex- tract for the information of your Honorable Body, marked No. 4, 3 will convey to the Congress a dispassionate opinion formed by an 1.ndividual upon the ground, and one whose impartiality none may distrust. Disconnected with the government, his opin- ions are made up as a patriot and one whose only wish I would deem to be the prosperity of the country. He urges the precau- tions which have been taken, and I only regret that the attempt at their removal has not been entirely successful, but has been thwarted by men who could have rendered loyal and perhaps good service to the country, if their chivalry had directed them to companiouship with those who have crossed the Rio Grande. When the command was sent to Austin for the removal of the archives, the Executive contE:mpated a sufficient force to have effected that object. The circumstances attending the failure are reported to be, that the command, twenty in number, arrived at Austin on the 30th of December, and on the same day placed into three wagons the boxes containing the most important land papers furnished them by the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The mob of resistance increased in number, from the time that the object of the visit was known, and before the wagons had left the avenue the arsenal was broken open and the artillery, charged with grape and canister, was brought up and fired upon the wagons and teams. No damage, however, was done to them, and only two shots are reported to have entered the General Land Office. The company who were authorized to take the archives in charge continued their march until they arrived at Kinney's, eleven miles from Austin, on their way to Caldwell on the Brazos. They encamped at Kinney's for the remainder of the night, and in the morning found that the malcontents had placed the artil- lery in advance of them, and represented their numbers at ninety men. Those in charge of the archives, not having sufficient force, left them and returned to their homes-reporting that Captain Joseph Daniels, attached to the General Land Office had been shot at several times, but had escaped, leaving his family in Aus- tin. What injury he sustained is unknown. The malcontents also declared to those employed in bringing away the archives, that on
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