ment made after _such_ provocations is not only a justifiable act
of self-defence, _but a merited punishment of intrigue and falsehood_,
_which I shall never have occasion to regret_. Few men after such scenes
would have stopped short at mere words. From the "_Take care!_" of
Proff. L. ---- and J. ----, (who were criminally involved in the
conspiracy of '48,) I inferred, that something was coming; indeed, I
myself inquired, whether they were going to let such a grave matter rest
without notice, as they had done with all my lenient protestations.

Two days after, on coming home from a walk, I was arrested by two
officers of the police, consigned to a low prison for several hours, and
without trial, (which was said to be over,) and without any legal
counsel, _converted into an insane man by the oath of two physicians_,
(one of them quite a young man,) who pretended to found their opinion on
an examination of about ten minutes, and since then I have lived among
lunatics in the asylum, from which I date this letter. My asseverations
and objections before the justice were in vain. Dr. Ferris and a
Wall-street broker cosily persuaded the judge in my presence, "to make
me comfortable!" I have since finished the volume I had begun, though my
absentment from my library obliged me to leave it less perfect than I
had intended to make it. For this purpose I was rational enough, it
seems. I venture, moreover, to assert, that in all other respects (save
only the obstinate affirmation of the _reality_ of the scenes of last
winter, which I am absurdly expected to deny,) my conduct _since_ my
imprisonment here has been found to be that of a man in the full
possession of all his intellectual powers. Nor can the physician at the
head of this institution conscientiously confirm either the sentence of
the judge, or the affidavit of his professional brethren. I look upon it
as perjury and a miserable shift to evade the real case of complaint, if
any there be. A rational trial before a tribunal, where each side of the
question could have been produced, would have been the part of honorable
men, conscious of their own rectitude, and of the justice of their
cause. But what aggravates these proceedings, is the strange expectation
that I should humbly acquiesce in the supposititious incrimination of
having been too unsafe to be left at large, of having been really
incapable mentally and physically to take care of myself--and the still
more singula