WmT1Ncs OF SA:M HousToN, 1836
351
committee, and other members of the council, were advised that I had received orders from your excellency to repair forthwith to the frontier of Texas, and to concentrate the troops for the very purpose avowed in the resolutions referred to. The powers are as clearly illegal as they were unnecessary. By reference to the resolutions, it will be perceived that the powers given to J. W. Fannin, jr., are as comprehensive in their nature, and as much at variance with the organic law and the decrees of the general council, as the decrees of the general Congress of Mexico are at variance with the federal constitution of 1824, and really delegate to J. W. Fannin, jr., as extensive powers as those conferred by the Congress on General Santa Anna. Yet the cant is kept up, even by J. W. Fannin, jr., against the danger of a regular army; while he is exercising powers which he must be satisfied are in open violation of the organic law. J. W. Fannin, jr., is a colonel in the reguar army, and was sworn in and received his commis- sion on the very day that the resolutions were adopted by the council. By his. oath he was subject to the orders of the com- mander-in-chief, and, as a subaltern, could not, without an act of mutiny, interfere with the general command of the forces of Texas; yet I find, in the "T'elegraph" of the 9th inst., a proclama- tion of his, dated on the 8th, addressed, "Attention, volunteers," and requiring them to rendezvous at San Patricio. No official character is pretended by him, as his signature is private. This he did with a knowledge that I had ordered the troops from the mouth of the Brasos to Copana, and had repaired to that point to concentrate them. On the 10th inst., F. W. Johnson issued a similar proclamation, announcing Matamoras as the point of at- tack. The powers of both these gentlemen were derived, if de- rived at all, from the general council, in opposition to the will of the governor; because certain purposes were to be answered, or the safety and harmony of Texas should be destroyed. Colonel Fannin, in a letter 5 addressed to the general council, dated on the 21st of January, at Velasco, and to which he sub- scribes himself, "J. W. Fannin, jr., agent provisional govern- ment," when speaking of anticipated difficulties with the com- mander-in-chief, allays the fears of the council, by assuring them that, "I shall never make any myself;" and he then adds, "The object in view will be the governing principle, and should Gen- eral Houston be ready and willing to take command, and march direct ahead, and execute your orders, and the volunteers to sub- mit to it, or a reasonable part of them, I shall not say nay, but
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