Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

MR. SNOWDEN,

THE trial of a case in court a few days ago has given rise to a report calculated to injure my character. The report is, that for money which I justly owed I went into court and plead usury in bar of the claim. Had this been the case I should consider myself entitled to the execrations of all honest men. I conceive that a man's own voluntary engagements constitutes a law of such binding force that nothing except absolute inability can dispense him from a compliance with, and that the person who enters into a solemn contract to pay money and afterwards takes shelter under municipal or civil institutions renders himself unworthy of all trust. By these principles I am willing that my conduct in this and every other transaction of my life should be tested, nor shall the world ever have occasion to charge me with a dereliction of them. But as I believe the best refutation of the report in question will be a statement of facts as they were exhibited in court, I will do it as concisely as I can.

This suit was brought by a Nicholas Harper against Alexander Smith, as security on a bond of James and Daniel Douglass.--Mr. Smith availed himself of the plea of usury and brought me into court as a witness, in consequence of which the plea was sustained and Mr. Harper cast in the suit. But something is said about a receipt, as if I had taken an advantage of Mr. Harper and obtained from him a receipt which I ought not to have had. I can only say that I took no receipt from Mr. Harper which he was not willing to give---a receipt that stated the truth of the case, and such an one as I was entitled to--That it was made use of to prove the usury was no fault of mine.

JAMES DOUGLASS.

July 27, 1808.