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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 184,2
114
Dispense the necessary information, as to the period set apart for the rendezvous, to wit: from the 20th to the 28th of July. It would be well if all could reach there within that time-neither before nor after. You will readily perceive the necessity and ad- vantage of the arrangement; and I trust you will exert yourself to induce, on the part of emigrants, strict conformity to it. It will be better for them-and better for the country. Disseminate the intelligence in such manner as may appear to you most advis- able. You will, of course, not understand me as making the time of their arrival a sine qua non to their coming. It is expected that you remain firmly and constantly at your post in New Orleans. You have been sent thither as an agent of the government, to superintend and promote its interests at that point. Dependence will be placed upon your 1·emaining there. Otherwise, no certain calculation can be made-the necessary information be wanting, and the government embarrassed in its operation. Although your appointment gives you the management and supervision of our affairs in the Valley of the Mississippi, it was never contemplated that you would leave New Orleans and undertake personal visits to the various points in that valley where it is expected good service might be done. Nor, indeed, can you know that agents are not already appointed for those very places, with appropriate powers, and that they might not report to you in yom· absence. In no case will you furnish any emigrant, or company of emi- grants with anything whatever in the way of equipment. It is expected and required that they come fully prepared themselves, even to the simple matter of a single flint. All contribution, whether arms or otherwise, you will immediately report to the Department and act solely upon its orders in relation to their appropriation. Sam Houston [Rubric] 111 Houston's Private Executive Record Book," pp. 147-148, courtesy c,~ Mr. Franklin Williams. Very little biographical material has been found concerning Barry Gillespie. Frank Brown, Annals of Travis County and of the City of Austin (MS.), VIII, 8, says that Barry Gillespie was a brilliant lawyer and statesman, that he and Abner Lipscomb formed a law partnership at Austin in 1841, but that they practised their profession throughout the country, up and down the valleys of the Colorado and Brazos rivers. Barry Gillespie's only daughter married John Sayles.
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