Mr Tazewell has communicated to me the enquiries you have been fo kind as to make, relative to a pafTage in the Notes on Virginia, which has lately excited fome newfpaper pub- lications. I feel, with great fenfibility, the intereft you take in this bufinefs, and with pleafure, go into explanations with one whofe obje6ls 1 know to be truth and juftice alone. Had Mr. Martin thought proper to fuggeft to me, that doubts might be entertained of the tranfa6^ion refpe6ling Logan, as ftated in the Notes on Virginia, and to enquire on what grounds the ftatement was founded, I fhould have felt myfelf obliged by the enquiry, have b [ 2 3 informed him candidly of the grounds, and cordially have co-onerated in every means of inveftigating the ('d6t, and corre6ling whatfoever in it fhould be found to have been erroneous.
But he chofe to ftep at once into the newfpapers, and in his publications there and the letters he wrote to me, adopted a ftyle which forbade the refpe<5t of an anfwer. Senfible, however, that no a6l of his could abfolve me from the juftlce due to others, as foon as I found that the ftory of Logan could be doubted, I determined to enquire into it as accurately as the teftimony remaining, after a lapfe of twenty odd years, would permit ; and that the refult fhould be made known, either in the firft new edition which Ihould be printed of the Notes on Vir- ginia, or by publifliing an Appendix. I thought that fo far as that work had contributed to im- peach the memory of Crefap, by handing on an erroneous charge, it was proper it ihould be made the vehicle of retribution. Not that I was at all the author of the injury. I had only concurred, with thoufands and thoufands of others, in believing a tranfa6tion on authority which merited refpedt. For the ftory of Logan is only repeated in the Notes on Virginia, pre- cifely as it had been current for more than a dozen years before they were publifhed. When