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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
principle for doing it. Then the whole magisterial court is quickly got by heart. All other administrations are ridiculed and abused. Arbitrary power is the order of the day. The prevalence of faction . is t,o be lamented. All opposition is to be regarded as the effect of envy and disappointed ambition The same necessity justifies all their meas- ures It is no longer a matter of discussion who or what administration is: but that administration is to be supported at all hazards is a gen- eral maxim Flattering themselves that their power, is become neces- sary to the support of all order and government, every thing which tends to the support of their power, is sanctified and becomes a part of the public interest. It is now only to issue a proclamation to let the paramount law be known. And only in the ordinary course of business t,o alter an opinion, or to betray a connexion Frequently re- linquishing one set of men, and adopting another, they grow into a total indifference to human feeling, as they had before to moral obliga- tion; until at length, no one original impression remains on their minds: every principle is obliterated; every sentiment effaced. Hence without compunction, they can order men, to be hung or shot, without any other authority than their own arbitrary will. In the mean time that power, which all these changes aimed at securing remains still as tottering and as uncertain as ever They are delivered up into the hands of those who feel neither respect for their persons, nor gratitude for their favors; who are put about them in appearance to serve, in reality to govern them; and when the signal is given, to abandon and destroy them, in order to set up some newer dupe of ambition, who in his turn is to be abandoned and destroyed Thus living in a state of continual uneasiness and ferment, softened only by the miserable con- ~ola.tion.• of giving now and then, preferm<.>nts to those for whom they have no value, they are unhappy in their situation, yet find it impos- sible to resign. Until by some unforeseen occurrence their villanies are detected, their traitorous designs made manifest; they are cast off with scorn; they are turned out emptied of all natural character of all intrinsic worth, of all essential dignity, and deprived, if not of life, of every consolation of friendship. Thus the political apostate finishes his course The principle of these remarks like every good principle in morality is trite; but its application on the present occasion is not the less striking, or necessary. I say nothing of his Excellencis early history which is allready well known; but I appeal to the sober think- ing part of the community if his conduct does not clearly bring him within the pale of the above rule His suspension, in a great degree, of commutative justice for want of access to the archives of the land office- the desertion and distruction of all the public interests as before alluded to; all weigh nothing when put in the sc:ile against his own personal convenience, comfort and security. Should a casualty happen to him; his vanity prompts him to think that Texas would be f:tricken from the map of the world. It is difficult to decide which affords the most fit subjects for our astonishment, the unblushing impudence of this empiric or the downright stupidity, or as it is sometimes called gullibility, of those who, as it were, swallow his nostrums People who claim to have com- mon sense, and who manifest it, on most other occasions, men who are enlightened, and who feel as though they occupy no small space in societv. ann wiPln no small influence over their fellow men, are quite
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