61
PAPERS OF MmAnEAU Buo~APARTE LAMAR
as prone to follow in the wake of this notorious political quack, and to sing hosannas to his name, as those of less pretensions Such political cheats and deceivers never can repent. The fraudulent have no resource but in fraud. They have no good in their magazine. They have no virtue or wisdom in their minds, to which, in a disap- pointment concerning the proffitable effects of fraud and cunning, they can retreat The wearing out of an old, serves only to put them upon the invention of a new delusion. Unluckily, too, the credulity of dupes, is as inexhaustable as the invention of knaves. They never give people possession but they allways endeavor to keep them in hope Has it ever entered into the imaginations of the people that the discent on Bexar by Genl. Woll was a planned matter, and perfectly accorded with his Excellencies views; affording him a pretext to abandon the seat of Government for corresponding effects, which were intended to be produced by it - ~nd that his cousin Germain the dishonorable judge (of epistolary memory) was a willing prisoner, whose character was well known to Santana, - with whom he seems to have had long private interviews - and sent back to this government as his agent and bearer of dispatches of a most seditious character? If this gentle- man was choaked a little he might, perhaps, divulge some awful truths Be that as it may however, he is well known to have much stronger claims on the gibbet than the Woolsack. Murder will out, time will shew I would ask for what purpose was the twenty five $25.00 dollars recently received through a house at Matamoros - was it to pay his Excellency's first years salary as Governor (under Santana) of the department of Texas, or for his kind offices to that gentleman in djvest- ing the country of all her armament, her credit, in short all her re- sources for either offensive or defensive war? So that under some specious and artful shew of advantage held out by the enemy, her dis- pirited citizens would from necessity choose what might seem, the lesser evil; abandon their liberties and rejoin that miserable horde of barbarians: or lie open and defenceless to the assaults of their relentless enemies These I presume however, are cabinet secrets which will be kept carefully under the dark veil of political apostacy, until time or circumstances shall drag them to the light. Good men look upon this distressing scene with sorrow and indignation. Their hands, as it were, are tied behind them. They feel despoiled of all the power which might enable them to reconcile the strength of Government with the rights of the people. They stand in a most distressing alternative. But in the election among evils they will hope better things from tem- porary confusion than established serYitude It may be urged that his Excellency was prompted by his sense of economy to conspire with the Congress the sale of the Navy that being under the veil like all other things, it lies between him and them But as before obs~rved he that does not stay the hand of suicide is guilty of murder Mere parcimoney is not economy. Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists [not] in saving, but in flelection. Parsimony re- quires no prudence, no ~agacity, no powers of combination, no compari- son, no j~gment Mere instinct and that not an instinct of the most noble kind, may produce this false economy in perfection. True economy has larger views. It demands a discriminating judgment and a firm sagacious mind It shuts one door to impudent inoportunity open an- other, and a wider to unpresuming merit If none but meritorious service
Powered by FlippingBook