The Kentucky Gazette

Mr. Bradford.

All told that somebody has given a lawyer a guinea to write, and the printer ten dollars to publish a piece last week in the Richmond Gazette in answer to that which was printed in your paper No. 8. Vol. 2. signed by A FARMER.

It seems this gentleman has signed himself a REAL FRIEND TO THE PEOPLE, and in the Member of the convention for Mercer County who the same charges with having wrote a petition and carried it to the Assembly which he describes, and afterwards came one and denied in convention that he had any hand in the matter.

And I also hear that somebody has published a piece (in the same gazette, which was afterwards printed in Philadelphia) concerning an old man being ordered into custody by one of the justices of Mercer for saying the militia ought not to fight without they were paid for fighting, who would have been sent off straight to prison if the Justice could have hired a lawyer to write a Mittimus.

Now sir, if these gentlemen are real friends to the Kentucky people, I think they ought to have published their piece in your Gazette, where the lawyer and the old man as well as all the rest of us, might have a fair chance to employ a lawyer on opportunity to read them, and give both sides, that the matter may be fairly investigated, and we may be able to judge who is right, and who is wrong. If the Farmer could see their pieces perhaps he might stand forth and defend himself--and the old man who said we ought to be paid for fighting, might also give his case on for so saying if he found it necessary.

60 or 70 miles from home, where I think the publishing those pieces perhaps neither the old man or the farmer are known or cared for, seems like backs; and moreover shows a spirit like an attempt to cut us behind of cowardice which does little credit to the friends of our District.

If their pieces put in your gazette, I hope these gentlemen will have hope that every body hereafter who has any scandalous things to publish confine themselves to the district about any of us Kentuckians, will where the parties are known, and where lawyers and printers may be employed as cheap and will do their other place.

A FRIEND TO TRUTH.