remembers his
itinerant career of laudation; his journeyings by sea and by land, that the
trumpet of General Joseph Reed's praises might be sounded? His essays,
reviews, addresses, and heaven only knows what all besides? But, above all,
how will he _then_ feel when he remembers that, under the stolen name of a
naval hero of the Late War, he, this worthy descendant of a Traitor and
Tory of the Revolution, once devoted whole weeks to the malignant endeavour
to fasten upon a pure and unoffending citizen the very crime of "Treason,"
of which he knew his own grandfather to have been guilty?

With one or two little anecdotes, (the character of which may somewhat
surprise Mr. Reed at the extent and accuracy of my information,) I close
for the present. I will select those which Mr. Reed has the best reasons
for knowing to be true. During the visit of Lafayette to this country, the
father of Mr. William B. Reed, (Mr. Joseph Reed, the late Recorder of
Philadelphia,) called on the General at his quarters, in this city, and
requested the honour of a private interview. The General (who had been
waited upon by Mr. Reed before, in company with the authorities, and other
citizens) intimated his numerous and pressing engagements; but Mr. Reed
persisting, the interview was granted; one not strictly private, however,
there being two other gentlemen present. Mr. Reed informed the General that
his object was to obtain from him some revolutionary anecdotes, of which he
was convinced he must possess a stock, of his father, the late General
Joseph Reed. General Lafayette's countenance immediately fell: he
endeavoured politely to evade Mr. Reed's request; at last, as Mr. Reed
would take nothing short of downright refusal, the General was, at length,
compelled to remark, "I am sorry to say, sir, that I am acquainted with no
anecdotes of the late General Reed which it would be pleasant for his son
or any of his friends to hear." Mr. R. having bowed himself out of the room
in great confusion, the General remarked to one of the gentleman present,
in surprise, "This is very strange! Can it be possible that Mr. Reed is
ignorant of the opinion which the officers of the Revolution entertained of
his father?" And now for another, in which Mr. William B. Reed himself
figured. A year or two before the death of Bishop White, he called on the
venerable prelate and made a request precisely similar to that with which
his father had troubled General Lafayette. A