278
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1859
"I entered into the transaction believing that everything was bona fide. I will have nothing more to do with it; and must look to your warranty?" No such thing. He says: "I release you from your warranty." He gives up and renounces the only chance which he and the parties he was to represei;it had to save them- selves; but not only this, he gave to League ~2,500 to pay his mileage to Mexico! One other circumstance, too, is suggestive, in relation to this warranty against the power of attorney, the link in the title from La Vega. In Mr. Lapsley's testimony, it appears that it had been greatly urged by Judge Watrous, at the time of the conveyance; that League had hesitated to sign the warranty, and that Judge Wat- rous had encouraged and pressed him to do it, saying: "You can sign it with perfect safety, Mr. League, because I am satis- fied myself that the title is good." Yet the warranty, when so urged, and about which so much anxiety was then manifested, is found to be released at the very time that the validity of the link of title for which it was given is called in question! And without which, Lapsley said, the bargain would fall through. I will observe here, that in all that I have stated of the cir- cumstances surrounding the alleged power of attorney from La Vega to Williams, to sell the land in controversy, I have not designed making any attempt to prove this document a forgery. That, I think, is indubitable. But my object has been to show the part taken by Judge Watrous and his agents to foist a forgery upon the poor settlers they were seeking to defraud. To accom- plish this object, I now proceed to a continuation of the narra- tive, resuming at the point where League returns to Galveston, having been furnished by the Alabama parties with means to prosecute their designs in Mexico. From the printed testimony in the Watrous case, it appears that the judge was fully acquainted by League with the communi- cations and results of his interview with the Alabama associates. · It was the judge who suggested the employment of the services of William G. Hale in the emergency. They are accordingly se- cured; and no sooner so, than Hale calls to his aid John Treanor, to undertake the most unscrupulous and desperate scheme for the fabrication of evidence in Mexico, to suit their purposes. Here, it may be observed, are again introduced upon the stage the two parties who were united as principal and agent in the Cavazos case, to direct the suit by their affidavits and their col- lusive management, in which it appears that, by the judge lend- ing himself to the scheme, they had been successful. rre.pn_or,
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