262
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
it removed to a court, where there was every augury of suc- cess, it mattered not whether by fair or by foul means? I have already directed attention to the participation of Thomas M. League in the management of the affairs of the land company, and in the advancements of its interests. It has been shown that, at the time the curtain dropped at New Orleans on the Phalen's case, a suit was on the instant instituted by League, on the identical test land certificates that had just been the subject of the suit in New Orleans; thus revealing his part- nership in the common iniquity of Judge Watrous and his "com- peers," and indicating his position as a prominent actor in the infamous certificate business, that was the chief, but not the only, subject of the company's operations. It may also be remarked, that Johnson and Hale, the attor- neys for the company in the Phalen case at New Orleans, appear also as counsel for League, in the consequent suit at Galveston. It is to be seen how he sustains other characters, and under- takes other parts in the wide field of the company's specula- tions. It appears from the testimony in the Watrous investi- gation that, in company with Robert Hughes, the confidential adviser and favored counsel of Judge Watrous, he assumed or simulated an interest in what was called the Powers and Hewit- son's colony grant, and undertook to bring suits in relation to it in Judge Watrous's court, by a feigned change of residence. The grant to Powers and Hewitson, the empressarios, in- cluded a large body of valuable land on the coast, west of Galveston. Powers expressed an unwillingness to go out of the State, and change his residence, so as to qualify himself to sue in the Federal ·court. He, too, as League, testified, had the common affliction of being "afraid to trust the juries of Texas." The diffi- culty, however, appears to have been solved by League, in con- cert with Judge Watrous's counsel and familiar, Robert Hughes. League volunteered to go out of the State, and bring suits in his own name, in the Federal court for a share of the property to be recovered. Powers furnished the subject-matter of litigation. League furnished all the money, and "Hughes was to do the legal part of the matter." The plot, however, was finally disconcerted by the decision of the United States Supreme Court, to the effect that League's change of residence not being bona fide, he could have no stand- ing in court; in a word, that it was an attempted fraud upon the jurisdiction of the court.
=
Powered by FlippingBook