257
°\YRITINCS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
"The committee have examined numerous records, consisting of pleadings, orders of court, affidavits and depositions, and after a patient and laborious research, they have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the conduct of Judge Watrous, in the cases above referred to, cannot be explained without supposing that he was actuated by other than upright and just motives; that in his disregard of the well-established rules of law and evidence, he has put in jeopardy and sacrificed the rights of litigants." In the present Congress, we have a 1·eport from a moiety of the Judiciary Committee; which, on the Cavazos branch of the case, presents the following summary and well~sustained judg- ment: "Every irregular or wrongful decision of the judge was in favor of the complainants and against the de- fendant Mussina, and those occupying a similar posi- tion, and was to their particular injury. By maintain- ing the proceeding as one rightfully brought on the chancery side of the court, these defendants were ille- gally deprived of their right to a trial by a jury, and were compelled to submit to an adjudication upon their rights to the property in such a manner that the deci- sion would be first and conclusive as to the title of the property, instead of one upon the right of possession, which would at once have been pronounced, on the law side of the court, in an action of ejectment. By maintaining jurisdiction over the case, when a portion of the defendants, as well as the plaintiffs were aliens, these defendants were deprived of their rigths to have the questions involved in it decided by the courts of Texas, to whose jurisdiction they were rightfully amen- able, and whose laws were to govern in that decision. By admitting incompetent witnesses to testify, their rights were affected by evidence given by persons who had no interest in the litigation adverse to theirs. And, finally, they are prevented from having the decision against them reviewed in the appellate court by the failure of the judge to perform his full duty to them in facilitating the exercise of the right of appeal, given to them by law, from motives of public policy, for their own private advantage, and that, too, when there is some reason to believe that the decree by the court is not in conformity with the principles of law, as recog- nized in Texas. Such a course of action continued through the whole progress of a cause, in favor of some of the parties and against others, is, to our minds, conclusive evidence of the existence of a purpose, on
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