The Kentucky Gazette

Mr. Bradford.

I am 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. 5, Vol. 4, signed by A Farmer R. Seems this gentleman has signed himself a REAL FRIEND TO THE PEOPLE and the Member of the Convention for Mercer County, who the Farmer charges with having wrote a petition and carried it to the Assembly, he subscribes, and afterwards came out 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 pay, 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 Farmer and the old man as well as all the rest of us, might have an opportunity to read them, and give a fair chance to employ a lawyer on 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 the real friends piece, 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 reason for so saying if he found it necessary.

I think the publishing those pieces 600 or 700 miles from home, where perhaps neither the old man or the farmer are known or cared for, seems base; and moreover shews a spirit liker an attempt to cut throats behind the backs 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 about any of us Kentuckians, will confine themselves to the district where the parties are known, and where Lawyers and printers may be employed as cheap and will do their work as well as at Richmond, or any other place.

A FRIEND TO TRUTH.