Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/335



Philadelphia, December 31ſt, 1779.

&emsp; R. TAZEWELL has communicated to me the enquiries you have been ſo kind as to make, relative to a paſſage in the Notes on Virginia, which has lately excited ſome newspaper publications. I feel, with great ſenſibility, the intereſt you take in this buſineſs, and with pleaſure, go into explanations with one whoſe objects I know to be truth and juſtice alone. Had Mr. Martin thought proper 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 grounds that ſtatement was founded, I ſhould have felt myſelf obliged by the enquiry, have informed him candidly of the grounds, and cordially have co-operated in every means of inveſtigating the fact, and correcting whatſoever in it ſhould be found to have been 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. Senſible, however, that no act of his could abſolve me from the juſtice due to others, as ſoon as I found that the ſtory of Logan could be doubted, I determined to