181
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1843
Mr. Parker is not responsible for one cent and never has been. The credit of the Government was not refused by the agents of the United States, for there is and was at the time Mr. Parker obtained the children an explicit understanding by which they were to be delivered up. His pretensions about his liability for two hundred dollars, etc., are utterly groundless. You will, therefore, take your child home. Mr. Parker has not the shadow of right to detain him, and by so doing is not only laying himself under the imputation of extreme brutality, but is subjecting himself to the penalties of the law. Sam Houston [Rubric] "'Houston's Private Executive Record Book," p. 355, courtesy of Mr. Franklin Williams. For an account of the massacre of the Parker Family and subsequent history concerning them, see John Henry Brown, hulfrm Wars and Pioneers of Texas, 39-43. The boy in question was James Pratt Plummer, called "Tommy" by the Indians.
To JOSEPH EVE 1
Private
Washington, April 22 nd , 1843.
To Hon. Joseph Eve, &c. My Dear Judge:
In great sincerity I thank you for your kind communication of the 11th instant. An apology on your part was entirely unnecessary. Such "trouble" as you imposed upon me always affords me the highest gratification. The intelligence which you communicate, is of the most interesting character to Texas as well as to my own individual feelings. The kind wishes which you express are in unison with your uniform deportment in Texas, and give earnest of the reality of your good feelings, so far as they are consistent with the impe1·ative duty you owe your country. vVe now begin to perceive prospects less distant from a comsummation than they have heretofore appeared. The attitude assumed by the Gov- ernment of the United Stats is not in my estimation at all equivocal. When the views of statesmen embrace the rela.- tions of the continent, and they express a determination to see them carried out, it is to be regarded as no light matter. Words are said to be but breath. 'Tis true to a certain extent; but when they are the precursors of actions we must regard them as weighty things.
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