sence of some of your friends, it was
reasonable to expect they would have informed you of it; but it seems there
is some difference between private information and a public charge made in
the papers. As a gentleman, there can, in my opinion, be no difference; as
you say, in your letter of the 9th Sept. last, that this insinuation seems
to deserve some credit from a _reference_ to _me_. You insinuate, that if
you had heard it, you should have noticed it. To this, however, the world
will give little credit, as you made no public or private inquiry
respecting the charge made in Major Lennox's certificate, though he
communicated it to Major Thomas Moore, son of the late President, whose
permission I have for asserting publicly, that he informed you of what
Major Lennox had related, the very day he heard it.

The matters mentioned in Major Lennox's certificate, and in that of Col.
Nichols reach vastly beyond me; here you absolutely apply for protection;
and if one report demanded your notice, in reference to my authorities, why
not another, more alarming to you, your notice in reference to Major
Lennox?

But the consciousness of the communications made to confidential friends,
and others, suggested the fear of other proofs. As long as it was only
communicated by private information, you were willing to submit to private
censure. But when a charge, which originated from me, was made in the
papers, it reduced you to the disagreeable alternative of a tacit
confession, or the hazard of public proof. And in the present instance, if
I am rightly informed, you was perfectly disposed to treat the publication
signed Brutus, with that "silent contempt," which, you say, you have for a
"long time observed, with respect to the anonymous abuse which disgraces
our public papers;" but your friends, feeling the weight of the charge,
goaded you into so unfortunate a measure. _"Unhappy man! against whose
peace and happiness all are combined."_

What answer can you make to the weight of testimony here produced against
you? I see nothing left, but to declare to the world, that the whole is a
wicked combination to destroy you; you may say, "you thought _me_ entitled
to the whole infamy of the insinuation," till the above mentioned witnesses
"consented to divide it with me;" and that, "if you did not sufficiently
measure the malignancy of their dispositions, or thought more favourably of
them than you ought to have done, you are content to ackno