. WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1842
53
419) Henderson tells that Terrell had come to Texas eight or nine years before the date of his letter, from Mississippi, where he had been living and where he had suffered great financial losses. Terrell was given the appointment for which Henderson asked, but held it for only a short time, for on January 30, 1841, David G. Burnet (in Lamar's absence) appointed Terrell Secretary of State. Upon Houston's taking the President's chair in December of the same year, he appointed Terrell Attorney General, Decem- ber 23, 1841, thus resuming the same political relationship in Texas that had existed between them in Tennessee twelve yea1·s earlier. J. Pinckney Hen- derson, Anson Jones, David G. Burnet, and a number of other men of like fame, are on record, testifying to the sound judgment and the legal ability of Geo1·ge \V. Terrell. Houston's confidence in him is shown by the , commission in the above document where the negotiations for a peace with the Indians is entrusted to his care. Nor did Terrell disappoint his friend. The treaty was signed at Bird's Fort on the Trinity, September 29, 1843. On December 5, 1844, Houston appointed Terrell charge d'a.ffaires to France, Great Britain, and Spain. There was considerable opposition to this ap- pointment, because of Terrell's known opposition to the annexation of Texas to the United States; nevertheless, on January 24, 1845, immediately after Anson Jones had assumed the Presidential chair, the Senate notified Terrell that this appointment had been confirmed. In the meantime Terrell had gone on to his work in Europe. He returned in 1845 broken in health, and before the be.ginning of the new year he was dead. He is buried in the Texas State Cemetery at Austin. See Crocket, Two Centw·ies in East Texas, 242-243; E. W. Winkler (ed.), Sec,·et Jour-rw.ls of the Senate, Re- public of Texas, 1836-1845, 292-293; Lama,· P(l,]Je.rs, III, 375; V, 418. 3 Joseph Durst, brother of John Durst, lived near Nacogdoches, on the west side of the Angelina River, and often served the Texas Government as special agent to the Indians (The Sottthwestern Histor-ica.[ Quco·te1·ly, XXXII, 344, 351). Adolphus Sterne (Ibid., XXXV, 168) states in his Diary, April 1, 1843, "Joseph Durst died yesterday with plurisy in the head." 4 Leonard Williams. On July 5, 1842, Houston appointed four commis- sioners "to treat with the Indians on the frontiers of Texas"; these com- .missioners were: Henry E. Scott, Ethan Stroud, Joseph Durst, and Leonard Williams. (See The Southwestern Histo1·ical Quarterly, XXV, 153.) Wil- liams was the resident agent who lived at the trading post near the Indians; the "field agents" lived among the Indians. Williams seems to have been an intelligent man, who understood the business of treating with the red men. See Ibid., XXV, 159.
RECEIPT FOR EXCHEQUER BILLS 1 Executive Department, Houston, Texas, May 16, 1842.
Recd by the Hands of the Hon. vVm. Henry Daingerfield, a box said to contain one hundred and twenty thousand dollars of the newly Engraved Issue of Exchequer Bills. Sam Houston [Rubric] 1 Fi11ancial Pape·rs, Texas State Library.
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