again to have a state
printer to elect, as well as nominate, the place went to Weed, as it
ought. Yet it was worth something to know that there was once a time
when it was not deemed too great a sacrifice to recognise me as
belonging to your household. If a new office had not since been
created on purpose to give its valuable patronage to H.J. Raymond and
enable St. John to show forth his _Times_ as the organ of the Whig
state administration, I should have been still more grateful.

"In 1848 your star again rose, and my warmest hopes were realised in
your election to the Senate. I was no longer needy, and had no more
claim than desire to be recognised by General Taylor. I think I had
some claim to forbearance from you. What I received thereupon was a
most humiliating lecture in the shape of a decision in the libel case
of Redfield and Pringle, and an obligation to publish it in my own and
the other journal of our supposed firm. I thought and still think this
lecture needlessly cruel and mortifying. The plaintiffs, after using
my columns to the extent of their needs or desires, stopped writing
and called on me for the name of their assailant. I proffered it to
them--a thoroughly responsible man. They refused to accept it unless
it should prove to be one of the four or five first men in
Batavia!--when they had known from the first who it was, and that it
was neither of them. They would not accept that which they had
demanded; they sued me instead for money, and money you were at
liberty to give them to their heart's content. I do not think you
_were_ at liberty to humiliate me in the eyes of my own and your
public as you did. I think you exalted your own judicial sternness and
fearlessness unduly at my expense. I think you had a better occasion
for the display of these qualities when Webb threw himself entirely
upon you for a pardon which he had done all a man could do to demerit.
His paper is paying you for it now.

"I have publicly set forth my view of your and our duty with respect
to fusion, Nebraska, and party designations. I will not repeat any of
that. I have referred also to Weed's reading me out of the Whig
party--my crime being, in this as in some other things, that of doing
to-day what more politic persons will not be ready to do till
to-morrow.

"Let me speak of the late canvass. I was once sent to Congress for
ninety days merely to enable Jim Brooks to secure a seat therein for
four years. _I think I neve