268
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
year, Hewitson's deposition is taken, de bene esse, at Galveston, to prove up the power of attorney. The order of transfer had then been' made, to remove the Lapsley cases from Austin to New Orleans. The power to Williams was common to both suits. It had been managed to get it into the Ufford and Dykes case, without difficulty, through the favor of Judge Watrous, and the evident collusion of counsel. In the Lapsley cases, however, an attempt is made to prove it up by Hewitson's deposition. Why, I ask, was this done? Why was the discrimination in relation to the proof of the power made between the two suits, unless for the palpable reason that it was considered that the power was not in a position to pass the review of the tribunal at New Orleans. Thus again is betrayed the ill-concealed concern of the parties in relation to this power of attorney. The deposition of Hewitson appears to have been taken at Galveston. It is to be observed that the Lapsley cases, in which it was intended to be used, were then in transitu in obedience to the order of transfer, and that the transcript was in the pocket of Robert Hughes, at Galveston. The deposition was taken before Archibald Hughes, a son of Robert Hughes, an agent of Lepsley, Watrous, and others, in their land transac- tions, deputy marshal, then, or formerly deputy clerk and United States commissioner in Judge Watrous's court. There, before this creature of the court, without notice to the counsel of Spencer, then in Galveston, and selecting the time when the suits were in transitu, it was managed to take this deposition of the confederate in the land transactions both of court and counsel. The introduction of this deposition was made with an adroit- ness and secrecy characteristic of the parties who managed it. They were governed by constant policy and secrecy, that seems to have regulated all their movements. In the Lapsley suit, as in the Phalen suit, at New Orleans, they showed that appreci- ation of the maxims of the policy of Reynolds, who advised that the case should "go off quietly"; that "the least possible noto- riety" should attend it, &c. There was the deposition of the confederate Hewitson, on which it was sought to rob the honest settlers of their land and homes, taken after the transcript had been ordered to be trans- mitted to New Orleans, taken without notice to the opposite parties, and taken surreptitiously before a creature of the court, and a man in intimate relations with those whose interests it was to betray and defeat the settlers who claimed the land.
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