WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
562
To CLEMENT R. JoHNS 1 Executive Department, Austin, March 28, 1860.
I' ., l I i' ' I
Hon. C. R. Johns, Comptroller Sir: Your note of today has been handed me, and I cannot believe that you comprehended my note of yesterday. When you state that "I desire the money shall be deposited in New York as the necessities of the Treasury might require," you are mistaken. I said "so soon as the accounts are adjusted the amount can be deposited in New York or New Orleans." "Drafts on the Department will enable the State to use the amount at par without the expense of a special agent." If the original voucher on which only the money can be drawn are so adjusted, as stated by you, your presence cannot validate them. Your remarks about General Forbes Britton are entirely gratuitous and uncalled for. That gentleman is neither a special agent at the expense of the Government, nor is he acting under any instructions beyond bearing dispatches to the General Gov- ernment, confided to his care. You have doubtless derived this information from the same source to which you go for a solution of all difficult constitu- tional questions and the relative duties of your "Department." In my note of yesterday I stated "/ do not believe it my duty to sanction a proposal for sending out a special agent." That ,vas my conviction of yesterday, and your note just received has sat- isfied me of the soundness of my conclusion. I shall decline to send to your office the certificate which you require for the purposes you have indicated. Your letter of the 26th inst. I will reply to so soon as my leisure permits. Sam Houston. 1 Executive Records, 1859-1861, pp. 115, 116, Texas State Library. See notes under Houston to Johns, March 26, 1860, above.
To WILLIAM BANTA 1 Executive Department, Austin, March 30, 1860.
To William Banta, Burnet [County] Court House Sir: I am informed by the Chief Justice of Burnet County that you refused to deliver up the arms and ammunition obtained from the State. As these arms were obtained under the state- ment that your detachment had been organized under my order;
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