ger from the inroads of a
foreign enemy, or the force of a sudden insurrection.

Conceiving that the exceptional emergency had arrived, as the Camanches
frequently committed ravages within sight of the capital itself,
Houston, who then resided at Washington, on the Brazos, dispatched an
order commanding his subordinate functionaries to send the state records
to the latter place, which he declared to be, _pro tempore_, the seat of
government.

It is impossible to describe the stormy excitement which the
promulgation of this fiat raised in Austin. The keepers of hotels,
boarding-houses, groceries, and faro-banks, were thunderstruck,--maddened
to frenzy; for the measure would be a death-blow to their prosperity
in business; and, accordingly, they determined at once to take the
necessary steps to avert the danger, by opposing the execution of
Houston's mandate. They called a mass meeting of the citizens and
farmers of the circumjacent country, who were all more or less
interested in the question; and, after many fiery speeches against
the asserted tyranny of the administration, it was unanimously resolved
to prevent the removal of the archives, by open and armed resistance.
To that end, they organized a company of four hundred men; one moiety
of whom, relieving the other at regular periods of duty, should keep
constant guard around the state-house until the peril passed by. The
commander of this force was one Colonel Morton, who had achieved
considerable renown in the war for independence, and had still more
recently displayed desperate bravery in two desperate duels, in both of
which he had cut his antagonist nearly to pieces with the bowie-knife.
Indeed, from the notoriety of his character, for revenge as well as
courage, it was thought that President Houston would renounce his
purpose touching the archives, so soon as he should learn who was the
leader of the opposition.

Morton, on his part, whose vanity fully equaled his personal prowess,
encouraged and justified the prevailing opinion, by his boastful
threats. He swore that if the president did succeed in removing the
records by the march of an overpowering force, he would then, himself,
hunt him down like a wolf, and shoot him with as little ceremony, or
stab him in his bed, or waylay him in his walks of recreation. He even
wrote the hero of San Jacinto to that effect. The latter replied in a
note of laconic brevity:

"If the people of Austin do not send the arc