wledge your
error, and do full justice in this respect hereafter;" and if any person
should ask you, would all these gentlemen hazard such assertions without
foundation? you may answer, "it is difficult to resolve what men of
ungovernable passions will or will not say, when their minds are inflamed
by party, and their breasts burning with disappointed ambition;" may they
not have "mistaken a conversation with some other person, or at this
distance of time, converted some JOCULAR EXPRESSION into such suspicions as
they have mentioned;" and you may add, "the MEMORIES of MEN may fail; their
minds are subject to the warp of prejudice and passion; they may convert
into serious import what was dropped in JEST; and, from false pride,
persist in what they have said, because they have said it, even against the
conviction of their own consciences."

In your letter of the 23d of September last, you say, "you have declared
the insinuations in Oswald's paper of the 7th inst. false; and you apply
the same epithet to my avowal of them." This assertion has been fully
refuted by the concurrent testimony of your _intimate friends_ and others.
In your friends, you thought yourself perfectly secure; but the weakness of
two of them has betrayed you, and the third is proved your accomplice.

It would, indeed, have appeared somewhat extraordinary, if you had not
discovered your intentions to some of your intimate friends and relations;
and that "no circumstance should occur to correspond with this imputation,"
after having communicated the same to me. Nor are proofs wanting, if they
were here necessary, independently of those I have already adduced, with
respect to some of your friends, who at the time held considerable commands
in the militia.

And "though specially sent by General Washington," as you say, "for the
express purpose of assisting me," it may not be here improper to make a
short observation, in which I conceive I shall be perfectly justifiable.
Though the duties of an Adjutant General would naturally confine you to the
Continental army, yet I can easily conceive that there was no difficulty,
by hints thrown out, or by the interposition of a friend, to induce the
commander-in-chief to permit you to come to Bristol, under the _pretence_
of assisting me; being, as _you represent_, well acquainted with the
inhabitants of Burlington, through whom you might obtain information. But
from the evidence which appears against you, it will