The Alexandria Herald

The house of representatives yesterday found itself engaged in a discussion of a subject, of a very different nature from that of the politico economical question with which it was occupied on the preceding day.

The whole day was consumed in a discussion, of a delicate and very much personal nature, which arose out of a motion made by Mr. Campbell, of Ohio evidently without personal motives, to pursue still further the investigation which was instituted on a letter addressed by Gales & Seaton, to the house of representatives, in their capacity as printers to that house.

Mr. C. did not move this further inquiry because he was not entirely satisfied with the report of the late committee, so far as that report went in the acquittal of the persons implicated; but, as that committee had conceived its powers to have been limited, and had not prosecuted its inquiries to the discovery of the person who did make one, and the most material one, of the erasures, he wished a committee to be appointed, with full powers to investigate the subject thoroughly, to the end that the guilt, in the case, if any existed, might, if possible, be detected and exposed.

We do not know how to narrate the incidents of this debate, of which our reporter last night attempted an abridgment, but abandoned the task in despair of success. The full report of the proceedings of yesterday only, will require more than one day to transcribe them, and even then will be imperfect.

It may however, give an idea of the nature of the debate to say, that it was of painful interest, and that scarcely any one gentleman engaged in it who was not more than once interrupted by calls to order.

It is no longer a question in which the printers to the house of representatives (our humble selves) are personally concerned. It embraces a wider scope entraining within its vortex high officers of the government and members of congress whose conduct and motives are arraigned with a freedom of which in our legislative annals, examples have been seldom seen.

It will be expected of us, that we should report the debate at large; and because it will be expected of us it shall be done, as soon as an intermission of unceasing employment will allow us the opportunity.

The subject being yet in suspense, we will only express our hope that it will not be suffered to absorb other questions of greater national concernment, by occupying with too much intensity, or for too long a time, the attention of the house.

We may be allowed to add, that it was always our impression that this matter was not ended, which has induced us hitherto to refrain from observations upon it, more particularly, however, with a view to the unfairness of the treatment, which, on this occasion, we have received from some of our professional brethren, avowed friends, as well as political adversaries.

The editor of the National Gazette, cum multis aliis, has a worse sin, as to us, to answer for, than a solecism in grammar, or a blunder in regard to the law of nations.

Every editor must have known the charge against us to be false, and had no right, by acts of either omission or commission, to make a different impression on his readers.

[National Intelligencer of yesterday.]