Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV. DEAF SMITH, THE TEXAN SPY. About two years after the Mexican revolution, a difficulty occurred between the new government and a portion of the people, which threatened the most serious consequences—even the bloodshed and horrors of civil war. Briefly, the cause was this: The Constitution had fixed the city of Austin as the permanent capital, where the public archives were kept, with the reservation, however, of a power in the president to order their temporary removal in case of danger 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 ordercommanding 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 followed the promulgation of this fiat in Austin. The keepers of hotels, boarding-houses, groceries, and faro- banks, were thunderstruck, maddened to frenzy; for the measure would be a deathblow 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 four hundred men, one moiety of whom, relieving the other at regular periods of duty, should keep c... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.