187.
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1843
·when at this place you assured me that you would have it at par if the issues were not excessive. They were restrained as far as it was possible to do and meet the most urgent wants of the government. They advanced in the Custom House but depreciated in the streets, if I am correctly informed. · As to the course which has been pursued in relation to the collection of license taxes, that was a matter affecting the collector alone. You had nothing to do with that. Had you pursued the course he did you could have sustained him. As it was there were two officers of the revenue acting adversely towards each other under the same law, and thereby impairing the " 1noral strength" of the law of ··which you speak. You say you feel proud and conscious of having executed the laws according to their provisions, and thereby have done much for the country in collecting revenue. That you have acted with integrity of heart, I have no doubt, but that you have carried out the "provisions" of the law I cannot agree. You were not required to give any construction to the law. It was plain and required none. And had you carried out the law agreeably to its letter, as well as spirit, you will find upon calculation that the amount of Exchequers collected would have been between eighteen and twenty thousand dollars more than it has been. This you will perceive is a very important item in our revenue; and by reducing the circulation this amount it would certainly have advanced the value of that remaining out of the Treasury. You say in justification of your advance from 60 to 70 and from 70 to 80 cents, that you were urged to do so by Col. Daingerfield as well as others connected with the Government. It was the President's sworn duty to see the law executed and had circumstances justified the advance which you made in the money, the Executive would have been as ready to sanction it as any other member of the Government. He was not apprised of the amount of drafts drawn upon the Custom House at Galveston by the Secretary in favor of Gen. McIntosh and others until the receipt of your letters announcing the fact. You say, but for this circumstance the money would have been worth seventy cents on the dollar. Even this would not justify your taking it at eighty cents. The nominal values which you established at Gal\'eston upon the money induced a greater flux of it to that point than to any other, and consequently afforded the brokers and speculators employment and profit in its depreciation. Had you come down
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