Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

The Gazette.

PHILADELPHIA,
FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 17.

To the honorable Thomas Jefferson, Esq.
Vice President of the United States of America.

When I concluded my last address to you, I then, sir, communicated to you my intention to grant you a temporary respite. but at the same time gave you reason to expect, that, having convicted you of the most unfounded calumny, I should at some future day, proceed to pass sentence upon you.

The performance of a task so unpleasant has been rendered unnecessary by an enlightened public, who, anticipating me, have already pronounced their fiat against you ; and you are, and for a considerable time past have been, suffering the punishment due to your crime. Hence, sir, it is probable that you would have remained longer unnoticed by me, had it not been for your publication in the Richmond Examiner, which some time past was sent me by a correspondent, and which I find your friends, the Democratic Printers, have, with their zeal usual on such occasions, extensively circulated.

Your extreme modesty will, I doubt not, prevent you from claiming the merit of the publication to which I allude, nay, possibly, may cause you to deny it ; but as I am convinced in my own mind that you did write it; and as I am also convinced that there is not one of your friends or partisans so lost to every sense of decency and propriety as to have written it for you, I am determined to prevent your reputation from suffering by that your extreme modesty ; and shall therefore most certainly consider you as its author in the remarks, which I shall address to you, upon it.

From my above declaration you may perhaps be led to conjecture that the sentiments which I entertain for you are not the most favorable ; however, have but a little patience, and I flatter myself that I shall in the sequel be able to satisfy even you yourself, Sir, that I am not to you guilty of injustice, and every person will allow that to your friends and partisans I have shewn a charity as boundless as they could decently wish.

And now, sir, to oblige you, as I doubt not you will read your own production with more pleasure than any thing from my pen, and to place before the public, for whom as well as for you I write, the subject of my future animadversions, I shall here give you the before mentioned publication :It is as far as it respects me as follows, to wit :

" With regard to Mr. Jefferson, much invective has been discharged against him-on the subject of Logan, the Indian chief, whose talk to Lord Dunmore has been published in the Notes on Virginia.- The attack, was made by Luther Martin, of Baltimore, and the medium elected for the publication of this attack was equally , worthy of the author, and of his production. Martin ushered his remarks into the world by the channel of the British Gazette printed at Philadelphia, under the eye and upon the risk of the British ambassador. This Gazette is perhaps the most felonious publication that ever disgraced the Art of Printing. In answer to Martin, we shall here quote some detached passages from a letter written by the vice president. This letter bears date December 31st, 1797, and was addressed to John Henry, one of the British treaty majority of Senators in Congress, and who has since been governor of Maryland.

" Had Mr. Martin thought proper," says the Vice President, " to suggest to me, that doubts might be entertained of the transaction respecting Logan, as stated in the Notes on Virginia, and to enquire on what ground that statement was founded, I should have set myself obliged by the enquiry ; -have informed him candidly of the grounds; and candidly have co-operated in every means of investigating the fact, and correcting whatsoever in it should be found to be erroneous. But he chose to step at once into the newspapers, and in his publications there, and the letters he wrote to me, adopted a style, which forbade the respect of an answer.-The story of Logan is only related in the Notes on Virginia, precisely as it had been current for more than a dozen years before they were published.I learned it at Lord Dunmore's, and I find, in my pocket- book of that year, (1774) an entry of the narrative as taken from the mouth of some person, whose name, however, is not noted, nor recollected, precisely in the words stated to the Notes on Virginia.- I remembered that general Gibson was still living, and knew that he had been the translator of the speech. I wrote to him immediately. He, in answer, declared to me, that he was the very person sent by Lord Dunmore, to the Indian town ; that after he had delivered his message there Logan took him out to a neighbouring wood; sat down with him, and rehearsing, with tears, the catastrophe of his family, gave him that speech for Lord Dunmore ; that he carried it to Lord Dunmore ; translated it for him; has turned to it in the Encyclopedia, as taken from the Notes on Virginia, and finds that it was his translation I had used, with only two or three verbal variations of no importance. These, I suppose, had arisen in the course of successive copies.It establishes unquestionably, that the speech of Logan is genuine ; and that being established, it is Logan himself who is author of all the important facts.General Gibson indeed says that the title was mistaken ; that Cresap was a captain and not a colonel. This was Logan's mistake. He also observes, that it. was on some other water of the Ohio, and not on the Kanawha, the family was killed.If it shall appear on enquiry, that Logan has been
wrong in charging Cresap with the murder of his family, I will do justice to the memory of Cresap. If, on the other hand, I find that Logan was right in his charge, I will vindicate, as far as my suffrage may go, the truth of a chief, whose talents and misfortunes have attached to him the respect and commiseration of the world. I feel extraordinary gratification, indeed, in addressing this letter to you, with whom shades of difference in political sentiments have not prevented the interchange of good opinion, nor cut off the friendly offices of society, and good correspondence. This political tolerance is the more valued by me, who consider social harmony as the first of human felicities, and the happiest moments those which are given to the effusions of the heart.

I am, dear Sir,
Yours, &c.
(Signed)
THOS. JEFFERSON."

Here ends your publication, as taken from the Richmond Examiner ;-And here I end my present address to you, till remaining with all due respect to you.

LUTHER MARTIN.
Jan. 7th, 1800.