WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 184,3
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public service. The Secretary of War thought it, therefore, . advisable to order a survey and sale thereof under the 32d. and 47h. articles of the Army regulations. The first provides for the survey and sale of damaged stores, and the latter for the placing the amount received from such sales to the appropriation to which it might properly belong. Under this authority, drafts were drawn by direction of the Secretary of War for the purchase of supplies, deemed indispen- able by him for the support of the troops assembled in Austin in March last to protect that place against expected Mexican attack, which could only be procured for cash, such as beef, meal, flour, &c., transporting artillery and supplies to San Antonio, expresses, repairing artillery carriages, &c., &c. The amount of about four hundred dollars in Exchequer bills, received from the sale, was paid to William L. Cazneau, as Acting Quarter Master General, the only item for which there was an authority of law and which was not made known to the Executive until the present call brought it to light. During the absence of the archives, and the continued com- motion in the country, it has been utterly impossible for the Executive with the means at his command to obtain the informa- tion necessary to the prompt correction of errors and abuses. As has heretofore been communicated to the Congress, the busi- ness of the Quarter Master General's and several other officers, is now four years in errears, and must remain so until the facili- ties afforded by Congress will be such as to enable the Executive to have it brought up and the accounts of delinquent and default- ing officers settled. The amount of defalcations cannot be less than three hundred thousand dollars-and probably a half million may not cover them. The statement from the Treasury Department in answer to a part of the resolution above referred to, will be found to contain items which were connected with the condition of the country, many of them for carrying expresses owing to the want of mail facilities-and others for the purpose of placing the militia in a state of readiness to act in the most efficient manner, if the country was invaded, as many believed it would be at various times since the appropriation was made. The amount paid for the subsistence of the Indians and presents to them, accrued principally on account of the Lipans, and the
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