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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
from }\fontery to this place but I was put off at the time·, by the plea that you were not conveniently situated for writing. I urged the mat- ter no further, until a trip was contemplated to Comargo when the subject was renewed, and I expressed an anxiety to forward your Returns to Head Quarters at the time of dispatching the detachment to Comargo, but I found you just as unprepared then as you had been previously. And so it continued to the last. I never found you ready but it was a long time before I suspected that your unreadiness pro- ceeded from an indisposition to a settlement. A general dissati[s]faction prevailed against the administration of your department almost as soon as you had entered upon its duties and it continued to [be] strengthened as long as you remained in office. Notwithstanding which you still possessed my confidence and friendship; and the clamors against you, were either rebuked by me, or suffered to pass unheeded. Suspicions however at length arose against you respecting a misapplication of the public funds, which I also dis- regarded, from a firm conviction in your ability to clear yourself of all such imputations, by a plain de\·elopment of your acts and an ex- hibition of your papers. But what was my surprise, when on being invited to make out your monthly returns and present them to my inspection, I found you altogether unwilling to do it,-altho' it had become indispensable to the retention of my confidence as well as to the vindication of your own honor. This very unwillingmess to ex- hibit your papers rendered it the more necessary that I should see them. It was made my duty to supervise your department- examine your accounts, and to giYe my approval to your returns preparatory to your settlement at head quarters When, therefore, you repelled my imitation to exhibit your papers, denied your subordination to me, and asserted the independence of your department, you left me no other course to pursue than the one which was taken. I was compelled to deal with you. If I could not force you into an exposition of your affairs, it was my duty at least to rebuke your disobedience, yet in do- ing this I adopted the mildest possible form, by suspending you from your functions upon the least offensive grounds; that of the unpopu- larity of your administration. The prevailing dissatisfaction against it might have been ·imputed to some disagreeable manner of executing your duties, rather than to anything disreputable or improper in the acts themselves. By placing your removal upon the ground which I did your integrity was unassailed, and it still left the door open for a satisfactory exhibit of your accounts if you were disposed to make it. Even in my letter of removal you were reinvited to a settlement, and I had sincerely hoped that you would haYe availed yourself of the op- portunity which was afforded, of coming forward with your vouchers and vindicating your acts. But instead of doing this, you contented yourself with some frivilous pretext for your disobedience and a re- criminating threat of prefering charges against me. Your arrest fol- lowed as a matter of course, Aud such, Sir, is a. plain and correct his- torr of the controversy between us, in which eYery circumstance will go to prove the reluctance with which I acted, as well as my entire ex- emption from the malice and injustice which I judge from the tenor of your letter you design to ascribe to me- You make it a matter of reproach, that I should have displaced you so soon after the "last in-
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