PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE LAMAR 289 fused. Other parties could, no doubt, furnish quite a different version of Jackson's opinion of the "young Trogan" than that given by himself. Houston says he has been d~ceived by Christians, but never by the indian; and possibly does not herein materially deviate from the truth. By long sojourn among them, he knew and adopted in boyhood the congenial craft and treachery of the Cherokee too radicaily to be over- reached by them; but in civilized life; the "large stakes" which excited his indian cupidity had to be disputed with place-hunters, trained like himself from earliest youth, to conceal their own play, detect the strategem of others, and kick down the ladder, by which they had mounted. Sam's autobiography is silent upon his extreme indulgence in liquor, and the relaxation of system which is its attendant. It is not particu- larly a gratifying subject, - but some of Sam's successes with the ''backwoodsmen of wild Tennessee," may be attributed to that cause; and the unlucky portion of his life spent in the Army, and in the sycophantic atmosphere of Washington on the Potomac, accounted for by the physical effect. Perhaps, the first Mrs. Houston's obduracy was owing to an aversion for powerful odors. When we consider the no- toriety of· Houston's misadventure when ineberate, it is rather a slur upon his artfulness, that he shrinks from an innocent avowal of what he cannot help. If it had been a moral delinquency, he would, long ago, himself - have made it the subject of a jest. He and I being on terms of intimacy, our ''boozing companions" in Tennessee facetiously denominated me SAVORY, and him, in contradistinction - UNSAVORY SAM. But he wont answer to it now, being fond of aristocratical as- simulations. The exalted Roman family of the Colonnas he gloats upon; hence his arrogation of the Cherokee appellation of Colonnah, although every body knows, they called him by no other name than "Big Drunk." The large portion of his life spent among the Cherokees, to whom when thwarted, detested and despised, it was his wont to return for a fresh lesson in subtlety, permits us to hope that ''he never deceived them;" and whether as indian agent, or as a private intriguer, or as Jackson's confidential emissary, of which, of course, nothing is known, . that his accession to the Texian cause was with an honest intention to forsake drink and live cleanly. Sam Houston at the mature period of life, when he appeared in the Texas revolutionary council, affords a singular, if not an admirable study for the Physolog:ist. That the feebleness of his internal monitor early became the scoff of his robust animal constitution, is well estab- lished by the unfeeling, lazy, volatile youth's long sojourn among the indians, his reiterated refuge among them in manhood, his continual drawlings upon the labors of his moiling relatives, his irreclaimable devotion to strong liquors, his matrimonial alliance with a Cherokee Squ~w, his low estimate of education, his external appearance, consist- ing of flaring- rags and of subtle patches, serving only to set forth the tenacity of his soul, his ribaldry, falsehood, subserviency and hypocrisy, and his marked deffoienc11 of moral courage. What quality remains to form the hero? None but the greateRt of all resources - impenetra- bility to shame! At mature age Houston's debauched course of life had we11ried out all friendship; and his alledged errands between Chris-
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