Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/72

without an organization to sustain it, was null and void. A Government with organic forms must be inaugurated at once. Without it, they could not command the respect or sympathy of mankind, and would be regarded in no other light than outlaws. He spoke for an hour with great eloquence and effect, begged the Convention to sit quietly and pursue their deliberations, and assured the members that he would instantly start for Gonzales, where he understood that a small corps of militia had rallied. He promised that, while they continued to sit in Convention, the Mexicans should never approach them, and if human aid could save the brave men then in the Alamo, that aid should be extended to them. Walking out of the Convention, in less than an hour he mounted his battle horse, and was on his way to the Alamo, accompanied by three or four companions. His action must have been regarded as desperate, else many others would have followed him. Col. Travis had stated in his letter that, so long as the Alamo could hold out against the invaders, signal guns would be fired at sunrise. For many days these signal guns were heard at a distance of over a hundred miles across the prairie. Late at night of the first day Houston reached a point where the expected signal could be heard, if made at all. At sunrise the coming day, putting his ear to the ground, he listened with an acuteness of sense not understood except by dwellers of the forest or by one " awaiting a signal of life or death from brave men." Not a murmur, even the faintest, came across the morning air. In vain he listened. The Alamo had fallen. And he learned afterward, that the Alamo had fired its last gun on the morning on which he left Washington, and indeed that the heroes of the Alamo were meeting their fate at the very hour he was speaking in the Convention. Assured of this terrible fact, he sought his companions, who were preparing to continue their march, and wrote a letter to the Convention urging members to adopt a resolution declaring Texas as a part of Louisiana under the treaty of 1803. The suggestion was not adopted. Had it been adopted, Mexico would at once have discontinued the conflict, as Texas would be a portion of an integral part of the United States. The question of recognition or annexation would not have been raised. The sympathies of nations, of peoples, and of legislatures would have been with Texas. Why Mexico made war upon Texas after her recognition as an independent republic by the Great Powers of the world, and why war was also waged with the United States after the annexation of Texas, may be known readily when the persistent, long-continued, and desperate hostility of thousands of persons of influence, and of a thousand newspapers, to the annexation of Texas are calmly considered. These journals and their