WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 184,2
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the charge of piracy, a demand was made by the British Gov- ernment for remuneration, and so accorded by this Government. Now, whether you could infer that I meant, in the watmth of discussion, a charge upon the present naval establishment of the country, or not, I will leave to your own candor to decide. I have deplored the fact that the present navy and its officers, whom I have always characterized as gallant men, have not had it in their power to achieve some substantial good for the country and renO\vn for themeslves. But surely I never have manifested a disposition unfriendly to either the Navy or its officers when in the discharge of their duties as such. I said to you, also, that I would not raise a finger in violation of my oath, the laws or the constitution, if every plank floating upon the ocean should rot; and in this I was candid. I referred you to the evidences I had given of my disposition to sustain the Navy; and you were fully aware that every cent had been appropriated to that object within my control and that every means I could devise was subsidized to that end. You asserted that there was law to do more. I called on you to produce the law. You believed it existed; I did not doubt your belief; I did, and do yet doubt my power, in the far;e of the laws r e f erred to, to vary my determination, even though you had produced the general law to which you alluded. And it could not be expected of me to adopt, under the circumstances, such a measure as the sale of a piece of public property which had cost the government several hundred thousand dollars without having a positive law to warrant the act. Indeed, if the law were pro- duced, I am satisfied it could not change my opinion in relation to the Zavala, for the last enactments of our Congress are posi- tively binding upon me. Your reference to the different appointments and authority given to Acting Quarter Masters, Inspectors, &c., will only re- quire of me to say that the President has authority to organize the militia; and if he chose to organize a part and not the whole, the emergency required it. But in this, he assumed no powers. All that you can say is, that he did not exercise all that were given to him. The appointments were made for special purposes and connected with the President's power to organize the militia. Your wish to give them titles violated no law. Their duty was special, and it was against my opinion that you should affix titles to them-but that their special duty only should be designated. As for a Captain of Scouts, it was intended to bring Mr. Che- vallie within the protection of the law of nations; proposing as
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