h if credited, incontestibly prove it--facts
which, I again repeat, will never be contradicted by any member of the
Convention. I ground this assertion upon the fullest conviction that it is
impossible to find a single person in that number so wicked, as publicly
and deliberately to prostitute his name in support of falsehood, and at
the same time so weak as to do this when he must be sure of detection. But
the Landholder is willing to have it supposed that Mr. Gerry might have
made the motion in a "committee," and that there it might have happened
without my knowledge; to such wretched subterfuges is he driven. This
evasion, however, will be equally unavailing. The business of the
committees were not of a secret nature, nor were they conducted in a
secret manner; I mean as to the members of the Convention. I am satisfied
that there was no committee while I was there, of whose proceedings I was
not at least "so minutely informed," that an attempt of so extraordinary a
nature as that attributed to Mr. Gerry, and attended with such an
immediate and remarkable revolution in his conduct, could not have taken
place without my having heard something concerning it. The non-adoption of
a measure by a committee did not preclude its being proposed to the
Convention, and being there adopted. Can it be presumed that a question in
which Mr. Gerry is represented to have been so deeply interested, and by
the fate of which his conduct was entirely influenced, would for want of
success in a committee have been totally relinquished by him, without a
single effort to carry it in Convention! If any other proof is wanting, I
appeal again to the Landholder himself. In his eighth number he states
that the motion was rejected "by the Convention." Let it be remembered
also, as I have before observed, in the paper now before me, he declares
it was his intention in that number to fix Mr. Gerry's apostacy to a
period within the last thirteen days; and in the same number he observes
that Mr. Gerry's resentment could only embarrass and delay the completion
of the business for a few days; all which equally militate against every
idea of the motion being made before he left Philadelphia, whether in
Committee or in Convention. The Landholder hath also asserted, that I have
"put into Mr. Gerry's mouth, objections different from any thing his
letter to the legislature of his State contains, so that if my
representation is true, his must be false." In this c