Gazette Of The United States & Evening Advertiser

From a Peterburgh Paper, (republished by request)

North-Carolina, Dec. 15th, 1793

MR. PRENTIS,

Your paper of the 6th December, 1793, No. 428, contains a publication styled, "An examination into the late proceedings in Congress respecting the official conduct of the Secretary of the Treasury."

The writer of that paper is either an angry man destitute of candor and information, or some speculator in the funds, who has adopted this base method of diverting the censure of the public from his own character.

If he had wished to avoid this imputation, in mentioning that Mr. S-dgk, had brought forward early in the last session, a bill to authorize a loan of two millions of dollars, &c. for the payments to the Bank; he would have added, that Mr. St-le of North-Carolina moved to strike out the whole section on the principle that loans had been attended with the most pernicious consequences.

And that though the motion to strike out failed, it brought on a debate which terminated in giving the bill an entire new shape.

I never in my own name, or any other name, held a farthing in the funds, or Bank Stocks in the United States, nor did I ever have a note discounted at any Bank in the United States, and I defy your dastardly scribbler to prove his assertion.

At some times it would be treating such publications with too much respect to notice them, at other times silence would seem to give credit and currency to their falsehoods. I am therefore constrained in justification to myself, to say that your paragraphist is a Liar, and I call upon you to publish this letter to shew my detestation of such calumniators.

The falsity of his charge against me, will I hope, induce liberal minded people to suspend their censure of other characters, who in all probability, are as innocent as myself.

JOHN STEELE.