ere is a general and commendable coolness and indifference
for such quarrels, that will not easily take fire on your false and
inflammatory suggestions; so that whatever you have catched at to raise you
from the earth, has broke in your hands and brought you again to the
ground.

JOHN CADWALADER.

VALLEY FORGE LETTERS,

AS

PUBLISHED IN THE EVENING JOURNAL.

1842.

From the Evening Journal.

MR. WHITNEY--At this distant day from the American Revolution, a new dawn
seems to be breaking upon the darkness of that period, and much that has
heretofore been shrouded in seemingly inscrutable mystery, is beginning to
be made plain even to the naked vision. The "seventeen trunks" of
revolutionary papers, a selection from which Colonel Beekman, the grandson
and heir of Gen. George Clinton, has just published, in one of the New York
papers, must necessarily contain much of exceeding value: and I should not
be surprised if the Colonel were to receive a visit, at his place on Long
Island, from Mr. William Bradford Reed, to request to be permitted to
_rummage_ their contents, and abstract or destroy any "document" that might
likely prove prejudicial to the fame of his grandfather, the late General
Joseph Reed. The Colonel must keep a sharp look out for Mr. Reed, and turn
a deaf ear to his blandishments, when he arrives.

Doctor Johnson, in one of his Lives of the Poets, makes an observation
strictly applicable to the claim of patriotism, which, originally set up
for himself by General Reed, has been perpetuated for him by his
descendants. Speaking of the boast a certain poet was accustomed to make,
of the sternness with which he had driven back an ass laden with gold, that
had sought to invade the citadel of his integrity, the Doctor remarked,
"but the tale has too little evidence to deserve a disquisition; _large
offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of
falsehood_." That portion of the quotation which I have italicised, fits
the case of General Reed to a hair; but "the tale" of his patriotism,
however "little evidence" there may to support it, _does_ "deserve a
disquisition," if only on account of the pertinacity with which it is
endeavoured to engraft it upon the public mind.

I have already given the _truth_ concerning General Reed's famous reply to
the British commissioners, and I propose to follow it up with th