377
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1843
This is designed to place in your possession such information as will be proper to enable you to take such measures as you may deem advisable in the present emergency of our country, and to exonerate the nation from the shameful charge of duplicity. 3 The maintenance of good faith and the execution of the law are so essential to the interchange of national transactions, that I feel peculiarly solicitous to present the very complexion of facts to the representatives of those governments from whom we have received such kind manifestations as from His Majesty the King of the French. I will offer no commentary on the acts which are submitted for your contemplation and action. You are most competent to judge of the measures which under such circumstances, should be pur- sued. Sam Houston 1 G. P. Garrison (ed.), Di])l<>matic Cor·respondence of the Republic of Texas, 1445. Execiitive Reconl Book, No. 40, 247, Texas State Library. 2 Toward the end of 1842 the Viscount de Cramayel succeeded Saligny as chcirge d'affcifres from the French Government to the Republic of Texas. Ashbel Smith wrote Anson Jones (July 31, 1843) that Cramayel gave a very unfavorable report of Texas to the French Government, and that he was hostile to the French loan that Texas was seeking. Later Smith again wrote that Cramayel had begun to think somewhat better of Texas, and was coming to favor the loan. But the feeling of disapproval between this French cha1·g6 and the Texans was mutual, and his occupancy of the French diplomatic office in Texas lasted hardly two years, for Saligny was returned to Texas in 1844. See Garrison (ed.), Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of.Texas, II, 32, 1119, 1453; also The Southwestern Historical Quar- terly, XX, 236. 3 See Ashbel Smith to Anson Jones, March 31, 1843, in Garrison, Diplomatic Co1-,·es1101tdence of the Republic of Texas, III, 1427-1428. Houston had 1·evoked a proclamation, made in February, 1843, that had temporarily abol- ished duties on French wines. This revocation of commercial privileges angered the French Government. Smith clearly explains the reasons for Houston's revocation of his previous proclamation. To J osEPH EVEl Executive Department, Washington, TE:xas, May 6, 1843. To Hon. Joseph Eve, Etc., etc., etc. My Dear Sir:- In the absence of the Secretary of State, by way of a familiar epistle, I design to communicate some official intelligence which is due to the Government of the United States as well as to that of Texas.
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