Mexier was then ordered to decimate them, which he also refused to do, for which he was broke of his commission, and banished the country; when a murderous wretch was specially charged with the execution of this horrible black bean lottery, and thus fell those brave men, who had so often staked their lives in defence of your liberty. After this most unjust and infamous butchery, which was on the 25th of March, the balance of the Mier men were still in the most imminent peril. On the 25th of April, the brave and lamented Cameron was taken out and shot without any cause being given. Immediately, however, after the first [452] order for shooting our men had gone forth, we lost no time in writing home for evidences of General Houston's falsehood. They were furnished by the bushel. Among these were his ridiculous and bombastic newspaper gasconade, in answer to Santa Anna's letter to General Hamilton - his numerous war proclamations - his bloody war speeches at Galveston and elsewhere - his proclamation of the 16th of September, 1842, calling upon all of the first class of militia of the counties west of the Trinity, and under which proclamation we came out, and in which he authorized the men to "call to their lead a man of wisdom, valour, and experience," and "pursue the enemy into Mexico, and chastise him for his insolence and wrongs." Also the law of Texas of January, 1840, authorizing us to elect our commander, and last, though not least, the Constitution of your country, by which foreigners, at least, are taught to believe that President Houston's dictum is not superior to that sacred instrument. These were the evidences which General Thompson so humanely alludes to in his letter of the 10th of June, to his Excellency Mr. Doyle, and which armed him so completely against the machinations of your President and the bloodthirsty vengeance of his friend Santa Anna.

Feeling now that the last blood had flowed which it was in the power of General Houston's vindictiveness to the Mier command to shed, and many of my prison companions looking to me to vindicate them against the foul aspersions of their unjust President, on the 29th of May I wrote to General Thompson to preserve me a copy of the letter which General Houston had caused to be written to Mexico. In doing so, I felt a duty more weighty, and far more sacred, than any obligation to the living. The honest reputation of the dead was the only legacy bequeathed by these murdered heroes to their mourning friends and destitute wives and children: that I shall be in any way instrumental in perpetuating the record that their husbands and fathers did not die robbers, as President Houston pronounced them, will be to me a lasting gratification; while to them, in long years to come, they may look back upon the fact as their proudest recollection, that the traducer of the dead was proved their slanderer and murderer.

Can it be possible that President Houston has a friend so blinded in his party zeal as not to know that Commodore Moore and the whole of his crew would have been shot, had they by any chance of war fallen into the hands of the Mexicans, after President Houston's proclamation of piracy against him? yet the Mier case is one point, with this difference, that they were already in the hands of the Mexicans, and it suited General Houston's policy to have them killed off more secretly, and under some pretence of mercy.

My letter to General Thompson of the 29th of May, above alluded to, [453] produced the following correspondence between him and the Hon. Mr. Doyle (letters numbered 1, 2, 3, 4), and from General Thompson to myself (numbered 5 and 6). By this correspondence it will be seen that I am first referred to the author of the letter for a copy, and in the event of refusal, then General Thompson promises his statement of its contents. Upon my arrival in Galveston, I addressed letter No. 7 to Captain Elliott. His answer, No. 8, shows his refusal to furnish said letter, which brought forth my reply, No. 9. I should then have applied to President Houston for the copy in question, but Mr. S.H. Walker, one of my fellow-prisoners lately escaped from Mexico, having applied to General Houston for the same, received General Houston's verbal denial of the existence of such letter. This correspondence will show that Captain Elliott, Mr. Doyle, General Thompson - all, except your President, are too honourable to deny the existence of the letter, and he does it with the same unblushing hardihood which has caused him to deny a thousand things he has uttered. Vice and crime delight in darkness, and General Houston may have supposed