Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/342

328 Great-Britain, and periodical publications of Europe. For three and twenty years it paſſed uncontradicted; nor was it ever ſuſpected that it even admitted contradiction. In 1797 however, for the firſt time, not only the whole tranſaction reſpecting Logan was affirmed in the public papers to be falſe, but the ſpeech itſelf ſuggeſted to be a forgery, and even a forgery of mine, to aid me in proving that the man of America was equal in body and in mind, to the man of Europe. But wherefore the forgery? Whether Logan's or mine, it would ſtill have been American. I ſhould indeed conſult my own fame if the ſuggeſtion, that this ſpeech is mine, were ſuffered to be believed. He would have a juſt right to be proud who could with truth claim that compoſition. But it is none of mine; and I yield it to whom it is due.

On ſeeing then that this tranſaction was brought into queſtion, I thought it my duty to make particular enquiry into its foundation. It was the more my duty as it was alledged that, by aſcribing to an individual therein named, a participation in the murder of Logan's family, I had done an injury to his character which it had not deſerved. I had no knowledge perſonally of that individual. I had no reaſon to aim an injury at him. I only repeated what I had heard from others, and what thouſands had heard and believed as well as myſelf; and which no one indeed, till then, had been known to queſtion. Twenty three years had now elapſed, ſince the tranſaction took place. Many of thoſe acquainted with it were dead, and