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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1843
443
multitude, but by the malignant and mischievous, their stabs inflict no wounds upon me, but are too efficient to blast their country and traduce its character abroad. In this condition have I been assailed for years without mitigation, malice never relax- ing its anxiety, nor vengeance staying its hand. Every arrow has been shot that it has been deemed could wound, and poisoned by rancor and malice. Have I deserved this, my countrymen? Have I incurred it by acts of mine, or have they been misrepre- sented and tortured into crimes? When I was in the discharge of a delicate trust, important not only to Texas, but to the civilized world, what has been the misrepresentation of my course? I am a traitor to my country; "bribed by Santa Anna's gold." I am denounced as a villain, a drunkard, a blackguard and a wretch. These things come teeming from the press of New Orleans, and are echoed here by repetition in the papers of Texas. "An effort must be made to dispossess the present Executive, and call others to his station. Not for the sake of revolution, oh, no." The cry did not originate here. It only came from the instigators of faction in New Orleans. It found a ready echo by repetition in Texas. Have I no right to vindicate myself against the foul aspersions of treason to my country, and bribery; bribery, which includes every other crime! "Twenty-five thousand dollars" was the sum I had received. But this charge was disclaimed by editors in Texas; they "did not believe him guilty of that, whatever might be his other vices and crimes." I challenge not only you, my countrymen, but your representatives, to place the finger upon the point in my whole course where I have been deserving of these charges. I cannot but view them with astonishment. I have been before the citizens of Texas for ten years. I was here four years before they became citizens, and aided them in becom- ing citizens. Was I perfidious to their cause then? In those dark days, when all were reduced to despair; when many were fugi- tives, fleeing from their homes, did I turn traitor then? Or did I not then stand unflinching, and brave with you the last ex- tremity? Was there any man among you more ready to bare his breast to the dangers that then surrounded us, than I myself? Would I, think you, sell my country for what would make me a prince for the rest of my days? Gray hairs have marked this head, bronzed when your revolution began. These hairs hnve told that fifty summers have passed over my head. In all that period the foul crimes of treason to my country or infidelity to a friend, have never been imputed to me by an honest man. When the history of your country shall be written, can you take a page
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