201
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1843
you will know all. 1'vly rule is, when my hand is in the lion's mouth not to strike him on the nose! If possible our countrymen must be restored to liberty am.l to their friends a?Ul country. By what means, I demand, will this inhuman probability be achieved? Will silence on the part of Texas and mediation on the part of foreign powers be of any avail? I think it possible that it may. But if it should not, would a gasconading course on the part of the Executive achieve anything?-or aid the cause of Texas in any respect? I think not. A government, or the Executive of a nation to pursue such a course would represent the ravings of a poor impotent maniac chained in his ward. Today I have just heard that Merida has fallen. I fear this is true. You will see in the " Houstonian" of the 5th instant, my message to the Senate on the subject of our relations with Yucatan/ and you can judge how I must feel at the late events. " Cold blooded and fiendlike" must I be indeed, if I did not feel for my country. Parricidal must I be were I to sanction, connive at, or even tolerate such.conduct as Moore's. 3 I feel well assured that Bryan concealed from you facts which you ought to have known to have enabled you to judge of my true situation. Advocates for 1·evolution, officers acting in violation of orders-th1·eatened with anarchy, and, to complete the catalogue of crime and confusion, Moore must add a com.: plication of crimes and compound of everything that is criminal and infamous, involving the Government in the charge of irre- deemable pledges or suspicions of duplicity. It has now resolved itself into this: Texas must look unto herself and by he1·self she must stand or fall. We should look nowhere for aid, but banding our resources, marshal all our strength, enforce obedience to the laws by making examples of all who transgress them and trust no one beyond the hand of the law, or the noose of the halter. It is but just to say that 99 out of the hundred men to whom I have given orders, have either neglected, or positively disobeyed them ! How can one man do everything! 'Tis im- possible! So at this point I conclude with love from all to all. Write to me often. Thy devoted Friend, Sam Houston [Rubric] 11 'Houston's Private Executive Record Book," pp. 376-378, courtesy of Mr. Franklin Williams. For Christy, see Volume I, pp. 343, 387. ~This message was sent to the Senate December 22, 1842. The Telegraph ancl Texas Registe1·, The 1rlorning Star, and The Red-Lander did not print
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