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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
521
of the United States. Nor was I without an assurance that a large portion of the Mexican population would receive me and cooperate with me in the restoration of order in their Country. Thus, I have remained tranquil and silent in the hope that the Government of the United States would consummate a policy which must and will be achieved by some one or the miserable inhabit.ants of that lovely region are to be destroyed by a con- flict of robbers. I trust that I am one of the last men that would avail himself of an official situation to accomplish any achieve- ment of personal or political aggrandisement. You Sir, may assure the President that I will continue or countenance no action with a view to complicate or embarrass the affairs of his administi-ation, nor will I intentionally plant a thorn in his pathway of life. I never have nor will I ever perform an official act that is not intended for my Country's advancement and prosperity aside from all selfishness. Now as to _my sending out volunteers, you will be able to judge of the propriety of my calls when you have the facts which I present to the Department before you. For information of the Department I have to state that within the last four month, on one Indian frontier as well as some Counties consid- ered in the interior, have been exposed to ruthless depredations from the Indians, some of them within forty four miles of our State Capitol. Accompanying this letter I will send the Depart- ment a list 2 of persons killed as well as the localities in which the murders were perpetrated. In the last four months fifty- one persons were killed and many wounded in escaping from the savages. Horses to the number of eighteen hundred have been stolen and within the last few days seventy horses were stolen from the dragoons of Camp Cooper. When the orders which have been issued by the Executive of Texas reach the Department they will at once show the neces- sity of this course as well as the propriety of "calling out vol- unteers in T'exas to defend the frontier." I cannot but urge. most earnestly the calling out of a Regi- ment of Rangers by the Federal Government to protect the liYes and property of our citizens. The fact Regulars cannot protect their cavalry against Indian thefts and depredations is evidence that they are not the discrip- tion of force that can give protection to our frontiers. However I have not until urged by an imperative sense of duty as well as the distruction of human life sought to enduce
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