WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
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The record of these might be greatly extended. But I have only intended to give a sketch of the most prominent and notorious of his misdeeds. In doing this, I think I may claim that I have not indulged in mere assertions, nor in any statements, unless sustained and accompanied by the evidence. I think that I have not commented with violence upon any of the revelations of the judge's offenses. I have had no disposition to indulge in denunciations, and I have sought only to marshal the facts, for the calm consideratio11 and judgment of this honorable body. With respect to the malfeasance of the judge in the cases of Mussina and Spencer, I have been governed in my statements by the letter of the testimony, taken by the House committee in the investigation of his conduct. I have followed this testimony strictly, I believe, and with no other anxiety than that of arriving at those legitimate conclusions of fact, which it inevitably leads to and warrants. In drawing to a close the brief history I have attempted to narrate of the frauds which were conceived, set on foot, and promoted by Judge Watrous and his confederates, a portion of whom, at least, ar-e known, it will be well to make a slight review of the principal facts, so as to hold clearly in the mind correct and proportionate ideas of the vast conspiracy of the details of which I have spoken at length. It appears that the company was organized on a scale of most extraordinary extent; and that its ramifications, as far as known, reached from State to State, to the most distant points of the Union, and that, as far as they are unknown, they may well be imagined to extend to existing sources of power, any- where in the country. The objects about which this combination was employed have been shown to have been of the most compre- hensive and varied character. But seldom, indeed, has any record of crime offered more convincing proofs of guilt, or displayed more numerous and more ingenious varieties of trans- gression, than that written in the history of the Watrous con- spiracy. Every object that cupidity could devise, or that fraud could suggest, seems to have been embraced in the designs of this stupenduous company. It was its object to plunder the public domain of Texas, to seize upon it by fraud and forgery, and to fasten upon whole communities the most audacious frauds ever sought to be prac- ticed upon State or people.
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