WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 184,3
460
Executive in pursuing such a policy and perfecting such measures as may redound to our present and future prosperity. At the commencement of the present administration, as all will recollect, the country was in a troubled and embarrassed condi- tion. Our relations with Mexico were of the most annoying, hostile, and unpleasant character. No prospect of an amicable adjustment of existing difficulties appeared. Hundreds of our citizens were prisoners and in chains. Our navy was subsidized to a revolutionary portion of that country, and the enemy meditat- ing and making incursions within our limits and executing every annoyance upon our border inhabitants. As a nation we were without a currency-without credit at home or abroad, and without mails to disseminate intelligence. Our resources could not be rendered available; and by this chain of untoward circum- stances our citizens were despondent as to the future, and those governments with which friendly relations had been established regarded our condition with apathy. We seemed to stand sur- rounded with difficulties and without power or expedients to redeem us from our thraldom. In addition to all this, the various Indian tribes upon our frontier, extending from the Red River to the Rio Grande, were hostile. Their frequent inroads upon our adventurous and enter- prising settlers, had been attended with many melancholy scenes of blood. The husband and the father lying dead in the field which his industry had opened, and his wife and children carried into a cruel captivity, were almost daily occurrences in our border neighborhoods. There was not a cent in the coffers of the gov- ernment, whereby it might afford relief to our people thus ex- posed and suffering. These circumstances naturally deterred immigration and spread abroad distrust in the minds of the public, as to the will- ingness of the government to afford the protection which the condition of the frontiers so imperiously demanded. This want of confidence deprived us of many a strong arm for the sword or the plough, and prevented the introduction of the capital so neces- sary to the speedy development and increase of our national wealth. Our situation is now different. For more than a year past, we have experienced no annoyance from our Mexican adversary. The great powers which have recognized our independence, have
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