265
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
On the bench is his honor Judge Watrous, surrounded by all the imposing circumstances of the dispensation of justice. The case of Ufford vs. Dykes is called. A jury is empanneled. Before the judge, as foreman of that jury, stands Edwin Shearer, a deputy clerk in his own court, who is the agent of the judge, who was present, and was consulted on the subject, at the inception of the very scheme of fraud at Galveston; was present at Selma, Alabama, when the contract was made between Judge Watrous and others, and who is a brother-in-law of Price, a partner of the judge in that transaction; and, besides, was not qualified under the law to be a juror. It appears that a verdict was rendered thus: Verdict-Indorsed: "We, the jury, find a verdict for the plaintiffs for the ten leagues of land described in the plaintiffs' [sic.] petition, and also ten cents damages. Edwin Shearer, Foreman. March 10, 1854.'~ This appears to have gone by default. Now, to obtain a default, a chain of title was necessary; such a chain was to be exhibited. Yet it is found to be admitted by counsel, more than a year after this trial, that the authority to sell the land in suit-the powe1· of attorney to Williams-the main link of the title, was wanting. It could not have been before the court, or the jury, when the verdict was entered. It could not, for the especial reason that the default was entered in March, 1854, and the testimony of the parties in the Watrous investigation shows that the power was never transcribed, or withdrawn from the land office, until December of that year. Juries, it is to be recollected, are selected in Judge Watrous's court-not balloted for. Further comment than this is unnecessary. This default was opened at the suggestion of Judge Watrous, as the judgment by default did not appear to answer the pur- pose he had in view. The object evidently was to have the titie completed, by introducing the power of attorney and obtaining judgment of its genuineness. And the fact most striking is, that at the second trial, Robert Hughes, the representative of Judge Watrous, is smuggled into the case for the defense, and very kindly furnished to the opposite counsel, William G. Hale, Esq., the power referred to--the very link of title necessary to defeat him, Robert Hughes, in the defense of the suit!
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