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PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
to speak with me personally about it, in the hope of justifying himself in my eyes and inducing me to cease opposing a treaty for his libera- tion that was then under discussion in the cabinet. Accordingly I went to see him; and during the visit the captive President employed all his eloquence and power of persuasion to catechize me and obtain my ap- proval in regard to his release, concluding his long harangue by ex- pressing his entire confidence in my good disposition to do everything that justice and humanity might demand; to all of this I responded in substance as follows: That I considered it a thing outside of all reason for him to ask me to consent to give him his liberty, while I remembered ·so vividly his cruel and perfidious treatment of colonel Fannin and his Georgia Battalion, having them shot in spite of the terms of their capitulation. I told him that the blood of those men clamored for vengeance. But leaving aside personal considerations, since it was natural to suppose that I might have [them] on such an occasion, considering that Fannin and those who were sacrificed with him were all my intimate friends, I expressed the necessity of demand- ing satisfaction, not on account of personal vengeance, but as retribu- tion for the crime and as a just punishment for having violated the sacred laws of modern warfare, stating at the same time that I would consider myself but scarcely less culpable than he if I should permit such a grave crime to pass without the deserved punishment. In answer to this Santa Anna told me that he was not to blame for this; that all the hatred and ill will engendered by that mournful event should justly fall upon the superior authorities who commanded him; this he affirmed in a most solemn manner, as if he were on oath, that the ordering of the execution of Colonel Fannin and those that were with him had not been made of his own free will, but in obedience to the Supreme Mexican government, that had decreed the death penalty against all the American volunteers, deno,uncing them as pirates and commanding him to treat them as such anywhere they could be found, adding at the same time that if he had disobeyed the execution of said decree, he would have been punished for it and relieved of the com- mand of the army. To pardon Fannin was to ruin himself. In order to admit such a weak excuse and not at all rational in extenuation of conduct so atrocious, it would be necessary to lose com- mon sense, and consequently I responded to the criminal Chief in the following terms ;-that no one is obliged to commit any crime violating the laws of God, of humanity, and of the most solemnly pledged faith, in obedience to an arbitrary, cruel and treacherous government; and that I could not understand how an honorable man could do it with the mere object in view of holding his public office and to fulfill his ambition. Under any point of view whatsoever the shooting of Fannin and his companions, after celebrating a treaty with them in which their lives · were granted them, was nothing less than perfidy and assassination- two crimes of the greatest atrocity-that could neither be excused nor pardoned simply because they were committed to please a corrupt gov- ernment, or because ft was necessary to promote the aggrandizement of an ambitious man. Such excuse instead of being a justification is rather an insult to the human understanding, and an aggravation of the crime.- Moreover, I said to him, reprisal is not always improper
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