Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

From the Richmond Enquirer
THE BANK—Again.

No other legal step has been taken—No compromise yet between the plaintiff and the bank—some negotiations have taken place, but nothing definitive settled. We have nothing new to give on the subject, but the following from Mr. Fisher's pen If we have not told the "whole truth of the matter," it is, because we did not know it -We have throughout the whole business, stuck to what we believed to be the fact-"nothing extenuating or setting down aught in malice."

To the Editor of the Inquirer.

SIR,—It is not for me to undertake to determine how far it is proper in the editor of a newspaper to communicate his opinions to the public as to the views which any person may entertain in resorting to the majesty of the law, in order to recover a just and fair claim, nor am I the proper person to decide how far such a step might be considered as a contempt of the tribunal before whom my suits against the Bank of Virginia may be adjudged. But as it relates to myself, I think I may, without being chargeable with any extraordinary want of modesty, make such a statement of that part of the transaction over which the court will not have to take cognizance as will correct an impression which your paper has (I will not say intentionally) been instrumental in creating on the minds of such of your readers, as think it is somewhat criminal to require payment of a debt from a bank in the lawful money of the country—not, sir, that I think it at all necessary on any other score than to enable the public (whom you have thought necessary to address on the subject) to understand the whole truth of the matter.

Previous to my commencing these suits, I tho't it but decent to afford the directors of the bank an opportunity of accommodating the business on such terms as seemed to me to be fair and equitable—For this purpose, I wrote a respectful letter to the board of directors, offering to abandon my intention of demanding specie through the medium of a suit, on the condition that they would direct their cashier, to credit my account for the principal and interest thereon from the date of such demand until that day, and that I would surrender to him simultaneously the notes on which my claim was founded.

The communication was not deemed worthy of a reply.—I would now, sir, beg the favor of you to say, what course you, in your wisdom, would have recommended to any one to have taken who was not disposed to surrender an absolute and positive right, nor submit to that right's being any longer withheld from him ?

I am not desirous, sir, to create any sensibility in the minds of those persons whose lot it may be hereafter to pass on my case, either favorable to me or prejudicial to the bank, and therefore will not enter into a discussion with you as to the ability or integrity with which the bank has been conducted—their situation is as well known to the public as to me, and the public are as competent to decide on the subject as any thing I can say will enable them.—Many of the gentlemen at the head of that institution I am personally attached to, and to all, I am willing that talents of the first order should be ascribed by you—but, sir, notwithstanding all that, I cannot allow that circumstance to be a sufficient excuse for your making use of any expression in the representations you have thought proper to make in your paper concerning the affair without my animadversion, which expression is in the slightest degree calculated to forestall the opinion of the public.

I will now only add, that I have, ever since the period above alluded to, been, and am still willing to surrender these notes on the same terms.

GEO. FISHER