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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1837-184.l
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claim to eastern New Mexico, in the Compromise of 1850, and by the exporta- tion of cotton through Mexico. He was also influential in the establishment of a state foundry and a percussion cap factory; and he contracted with private firms for the manufacture of arms for the state troops, but these efforts were only partially successful in supplying the needed munitions. He had better success in developing a cloth and shoe factory in the state penitentiary. At the close of his administration, he 1·eceived a commission as colonel, in the Confederate army, serving first on the staff of General Magruder, and later on that of General John A. Wharton in the campaign against Banks in Louisiana. In the summer of 1864 he was called to Richmond as adviser to the Confederate government on trans-Mississippi affairs. He was captured with President Davis in May, 1865, and imprisoned for several months at Fort Delaware. Upon his release from prison he returned to Texas and opened com- mission houses in Houston and Galveston. He also reopened his ranch, and lost his entire fortune in a beef-packing venture. He then became tax collector for the City of Galveston; and in 1878 he was elected state treasurer, an office he held until he voluntarily resigned it in 1891. After the death of his first wife he married (December, 1883) Mrs. Sarah E. Porter; and twenty years later (August 12, 1903), he married Sue Scott. His Six Decades in Texas, or Memofrs of Francis R. Lubbock, edited by C. W. Raines, was published in 1900. Dr. C. W. Ramsdell, his biographer in Dictionmif of American Biography, XI, 480-481, says, "His last years were spent in Austin, where the bent form of the vivacious little old man, dressed on all important occasions in Confederate gray, was a familiar and popular figure." See Fmncis R. Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas; Southwestern Historical Q1,arte1·ly XXVII, 258; Dallas 1vlo1·ning News, June 23, 1905.
JANUARY, 1842-APRIL, 1842
To JAMES REILY 1 Executive Department, City of Austin, January 1st, 1842. To the Honorable Jame Reily, Charge d'Affaires to the United States. Sir, You will receive a letter of credit from the Secretary of the Treasury, of this date, authorizing you to check upon the Treasury Department in sums to suit your convenience, for the amount of your outfit as Minister Charge d'Affaires to the United States, it being two thousand dollars. You are hereby informed and assured that the Collector of the Custom House at Galveston will be instructed and authorized through the Secretary of the Treasury to receive your drafts to the amount above specified,
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