i^/i^^ 
 
WILLIAM B. REED, 
 
 OF CHESTNUT HILL, 
 
 
 IILADELPHIA. 
 
 ^^/ 
 
 
 3^2-7 
 
 EXPERT 
 
 
 IN THE ART OF 
 
 
 EXHUMATION OF THE DEAD. 
 
 >>)-_.•: 
 
 RE-PEINTED FROM THE LONDON EDITION. 
 
 1867. 
 
EI 302 
 
 ■ ^ 
 
 The extreme difficulty of getting any tiling done in London, 
 during the Easter Holidays, at printing offices, as elsewhere, has 
 caused an additional delay of ten days in getting this ready for 
 transmission to Philadelphia, to my extreme annoyance. It ■will 
 now go out in the Steamer of Saturday, 4th May. Printed here, 
 for convenience sake, it will be circulated at home, as extensively 
 as I can possibly spread it among my friends, but only at home, 
 for I have no desire to invoke the judgment of a foreign tribunal, 
 I shall also address copies to the Philadelphia Library, The 
 Merchants' Exchange, The Philadelphia Athenaeum, and Mercan- 
 tile Library, for public use, if the gentlemen in charge of those 
 public Institutions, two of whom at least I hope I may include 
 among my friends, will permit them to lie on their tables. The 
 Pamphlet, which has provoked this, is, I learn, publicly offered for 
 sale. The one in my possession was bought and sent to me. 
 
 B. R. 
 
 London, 2d Mai/, 1867. 
 
My attention has been called, not by the writer, to a Pamphlet 
 entitled " President Reed of Pennsylvania, a Pe-ply to Mr. Q-eorge 
 Bancroft and Others. February, A. J>., 1867. Philadelphia.'' 
 The Pamphlet is the production of William B. Reed, of Chestnut 
 Hill, Philadelphia, whose name appears to the Introduction, and 
 among the "Others" included in his malignant notice, are General 
 John Cadwalader of Revolutionary fame. Doctor Benjamin Rush, 
 and his Brother, Judge Jacob Rush. It is not the first time that 
 these three names have been associated. 
 
 When Judge Rush was once treated rudely on the Bench of the 
 Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, by a member of the Bar, 
 and unable from his position to make the proper reply, a son of 
 Doctor Rush, then Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and present 
 in Court, rebuked him in fit terms. The assailant was a man of 
 spirit and called Mr. Rush to account. The call led to a meeting, 
 on which occasion the latter was accompanied to the field by his 
 life-long friend, whom he loved, and whose pall he subsequently 
 bore. General Thomas Cadwalader, son of General John Cadwalader. 
 It may be added, as honorable to both parties to that encounter, 
 that their subsequent relations through life, were those of 
 gentlemen. 
 
 Mr. Reed has therefore publicly revived, at the end of more 
 than fifty years, an association of names which the descendants of 
 Doctor Rush cherish, and of which they have cause to be proud, 
 for if there be on the roll of those most eminent in Philadelphia 
 for every quality of the gentleman — truth, honor, high spirit, — one 
 more significant of each than that of Cadwalader, it would require 
 a "trufile dog" even more industrious, if possible, than Mr. Reed, 
 to discover it. 
 
 The late Lord Abinger once said, on the Bench, of one of the 
 Counsel in a cause before him, the present Lord Chancellor of 
 England, that if ever it should fall to his lot to be assailed, he 
 hoped it might be in company with that learned gentleman, for 
 
that the high character of Mr. Thesiger would be a sufficient 
 defence against any charge levelled at any associate of his. 
 
 Hence, when Doctor Rush and Judge Rush are called to share 
 with General John Cadwalader the bitterness of Mr. Reed's wrath, 
 the first thought which naturally arises is, that the two former are 
 at least in good company, and that if there be any truth in the old 
 noscitur a sociis, which, to be exact, should here read socio, they 
 have nothing to lose by the juxtaposition. It is to be hoped that 
 their joint memories may yet survive the thrusts of the assassin-like 
 pen of William B. Reed. 
 
 Now I have very little to say. I shall not waste words upon 
 this gentleman. The Rebellion being at an end, though not 
 according to the programme which Mr. Reed would have 
 arranged, a new excitement was needed. He has volunteered to 
 supply one. As an excuse, some will be apt to think, however 
 erroneously, for again overwhelming the American People with the 
 renown of "President" Reed; at any rate for a fresh tussle with 
 fate "to make Pennsylvania proud of one of her sons," encouraged 
 by the satisfactory assurance that his former labors in that field 
 had at least "not been in vain," the descendant of the "President" 
 has inflicted upon the long suffering public a fresh issue of one 
 hundred and thirty-two pages. I shall try hard to restrict myself 
 to ten or a dozen. 
 
 Mr. Reed's avowed purpose is, to vindicate the fame of an 
 ancestor of his, against whom a good many hard things were said 
 a great while ago. But with an admission of strong feelings which 
 may have aff'ected his judgment (p. 126), and the gradual loss of 
 his temper and reckoning, he has gone a long way further, and 
 very far out of his way. Abandoning his "merely defensive" 
 positions, he has sought the oi^posite, and has plunged into 
 offensive warfare, with the zeal of an enthusiast, laying about 
 him, right and left, like a maniac, at almost every thing and every- 
 body, and with an utter disregard of names if not things. 
 
 In the course of his frantic gestures, he has run against an 
 ancestor of mine, and here he pauses to take breath. Gathering 
 up his energies for a fresh outpouring of venom, he proceeds, in 
 language of scurrility, rarely surpassed, and in defiance of truth, to 
 
assail the reputation of one, against whom, as far as my knowledge 
 extends, no defamatory word was ever before uttered, and who 
 has slept undisturbed in the tomb since the year 1813. I am 
 wrong. There was one exception. Some forty years ago, John 
 Randolph of Roanoke, whose name conveys his eulogy, of whom 
 Mr. Reed knows something, and whom he appears to have made 
 his model, in the course of his daily crusades in Congress 
 against the quick and the dead, Avhicli gathered the members 
 around him, and packed the galleries daily with men and boys, 
 pretty much as you would now go to witness any other performance 
 in the ring, — Mr. Randolph, in an unlucky moment, stumbled upon 
 Doctor Rush's grave, and proceeded to disinter him, pretty much 
 as Mr. Reed, his sole rival in the art of exhumation, has just 
 attempted to do the same thing. There was this difference, how- 
 ever. Each made use of the same tools, detraction and calumny, 
 with an attempt at ridicule. But the former was a master 
 workman, and, from long experience, handled his in the style of 
 an adept. The latter, though equally ambitious to shine in the 
 art, and though, as a sop to his vanity, I have elevated him to the 
 rank of an expert, handled his clumsily in comparison, exhibiting 
 unmistakeable signs of the novice, as much in execution as plan. 
 I incline to think that the "Orator of Roanoke," as he was called 
 by some, the "Orator of the Human Race," by others, got for 
 his pains, on that memorable occasion, from a high-spirited son of 
 Doctor Rush, rather more than he bargained for, and I incline to 
 the opinion that others thought so too. 
 
 But the offence which Mr. Reed has committed is still' of the 
 first degree. It has no extenuatino; circumstances. It is brim 
 full of malice. For this he has earned retribution, the severest 
 that I can inflict. For this he shall have it. 
 
 With President Reed; the charges brought against him at the 
 close of the Revolutionary War; their revival since; his public 
 services and many titles to distinction, from the charge of omitting 
 to enumerate, and make the most of, the least of which, the 
 grandson is certainly free; with all this, I have nothing to do. 
 Never having had any connection, direct or indirect, with the 
 controversy in reference to Mr. Reed's Grandfather; never having 
 
cared enougli about It, or about Mr. Reed's ancestor or himself, 
 to waste five minutes upon either, I shouhl find myself destitute 
 of the first element necessary to approach such a discussion — ■ 
 knowledge. 
 
 To be sure, knowledge may be acquired or assumed, in which 
 latter respect I should not have far to go for an example, though 
 in such case it be no longer "power." Even those wise old 
 Greeks were liable to be swayed by their inclinations, just as the 
 feelings sometimes afi"ect the judgment, and the 
 
 or in the simpler Latin, which to one of Mr. Eeed's scholary 
 pretensions is of course unnecessary, the 
 
 Facile crcdimus, quo4 volumuS) 
 
 is as true, it seems, now, as in those classic days. 
 
 But I am deterred from any further allusion to the subject 
 matter of this Pamphlet, by another cause. 
 
 Of the direct male descendants of Dr. Rush, there remain now, 
 alas, but four, minors excepted. 
 
 Of these, one is the last surviving son, a gentleman now past 
 eighty. He has caused it to be intimated to me that he wishes 
 any notice of this Pamphlet "that may become necessary," to be 
 left to IIIM. It is my duty to treat with every consideration and 
 respect, any such wish on his part, and I shall do so. 
 
 If he decides on a reply to the Pamphlet, I well know how he 
 will handle it and the writer. I can imagine how he will scathe 
 him, as* that other "Porcupine," scarcely more fretful, William 
 Cobbett, was scathed and blasted by public opinion, on the 
 occasion to which Mr. Reed refers, though, with the siippressio veri 
 of a pettifogger, he has omitted to remind his readers of it. 
 
 If my Uncle decides otherwise, it will be that he, at least, is 
 consistent in a theory upon which few men act; which I have 
 often heard him maintain ; but which was never better condensed 
 than in an illusion I once heard him make, with characteristic 
 point and brevity, not indeed to Barabbas by name, but to men 
 like William B. Reed — "wow this man ivas a politician." 
 
 Speaking, however, for the third generation of the descendanta 
 
of Doctor Rush, of -n-lioni I am the senior in years, of those who 
 bear his name, — now, alas, much the senior — and who have con- 
 sented to let me speak for them, and only waited for me to speak, 
 I should be untrue to all my hereditary and native instincts, and 
 theirs, to let this impudent Paynpliletcer off without the chastise- 
 ment he deserves, passing wholly by, for the reason given, the 
 subject of his labored and often unintelligible Pami^hlet; the more 
 unintelligible, often, as having been written under those strong 
 feelings which affect the judgment. 
 
 Yes. This man was, and is, indeed, a politician, and here we 
 have the gist of the case: a desperate, double-dealing, dethroned, 
 disappointed, despised politician ! 
 
 A word or two of his public importance, which must necessarily 
 affect, to a greater or less extent, the weight of his statements. 
 
 A traitor to his Party, to begin with; the only Party at one time 
 disposed to honor him by elective trust, and through whose gene- 
 rous aid, at a time when, like poor Mo in "Flying Scud," he was 
 "young and innocent, he did manage to attain, for a little while, 
 the high distinction of a rather uncomfortable seat in the lower 
 branch of the Legislature of Pennsylvania; and greatly, certainly, 
 must he have distinguished himself there, for, in spite of all his 
 dextrous and unscrupulous manoeuvres, and morbid ambition, he 
 has never had the opportunity of exposing himself, and abusing 
 public confidence, as a legislator, since, as far as I can now remem- 
 ber; a traitor to his former friends; hated, therefore, by that great 
 Party, and by most of them, since and now, wath an intense hatred ; 
 a worse than incubus, a dead weight, a living scandal, to that 
 other great Party, into whose time-honored ranks he has since 
 endeavored to foist himself, after having made it the mark of 
 his jeers and gibes, and expended upon it his malignity, for a quarter 
 of a century; that great Party w.hich, though it has barely 
 tolerated, has never trusted, and ahvays been shy of, him ; for his 
 mission to "the other side of the globe" did not originate in 
 popular democratic confidence; never allotvcd him to speahfortheyn, 
 certainly on any important occasion, within my recollection ; never 
 allowed him to write for them, under his otvn name, when they 
 could possibly help it, if I am rightly informed; never honored 
 
him ■with a nomination to Congress; never permitted him, as far as 
 I know, even to go as a delegate to a National or State Conven- 
 tion ; and there are those who know what bitter heart-burnings 
 this gave rise to in our modern Pamphleteer ; would not have him 
 at a private meeting of members of the Democratic Party held in 
 Philadelphia while the Rebellion raged, and attended equally by 
 those Avho supported, and those who honorably opposed, the War;* 
 a traitor to the Country from the hour that Eort Sumpter was 
 fired upon; f rejoicing in every rebel victory ; disparaging and sneer- 
 ing at every Union triumph; openly proclaiming his preference for 
 a divided Empire ; not only giving every possible aid and comfort 
 (in his power!) to the cause of those in arms against the Union, but 
 absolutely ridiculing, and seeking to discourage, the noble effort to 
 alleviate and soothe the lingering miseries of those who wasted, and 
 threw away, health and life in its defence ; | upon whose fresh and 
 honorable graves no tear of William B. Reed descended; but 
 rather cruel mockeries and fiendish exultation; for all which, and 
 more, it was with the utmost difficulty that he was saved, at one 
 time, from ignominious expulsion from Chestnut Hill ; an atmos- 
 phere contaminated by his presence, and a society which he dis- 
 
 * I will violate no confidence. All I shall say, and more, was soon publicly known. The 
 meeting was held in 1863. I was at it. The object was to aid in re-establishng the Demo- 
 cratic Party upon its ancient and only true foundation, that of a War Party, and pledge it, 
 as heretofore, like Decatur to the Country, if Thk Union were the Country, "right or 
 WRONG." I was one of those who exerted themselves in getting up the meeting, and this 
 gave me a right to submit one condition. I mi<de it a stipulation that Mr. Reed was not to 
 be there, because I thought his mere presence would retard, and might even defeat, the 
 object. I disclaimed personal disrespect to him. The stipulation was agreed to, and our ex- 
 Member of the Legislature, ex-District Attorney, ex-Whig, ex-Minister to China, was not at 
 the Meeting. 
 
 tLet mc not be misunderstood here. To stigmatize as traitors to the Country all who op- 
 posed the War, would be unjust, and is far from my intention. While I deeply regretted such 
 a course on the part of so many of my political, some of whom were, and still are, among the 
 warmest of my personal, friends, and told them so, I felt that they had the same i-ight of opin- 
 ion that I claimed. But Mr. Reed went further than he who went furthest. His opposition 
 was as bitter and malignant, as was his opposition to the Democratic Party in former days 
 It was more. It was open and flagrant preference for the cause of the Rebellion. If Mr. Reed 
 has ties of blood to the South, I have not heard it. I have; many and cherished- I grew 
 up among Southern boys, and many of my most early recollections centre in Southern 
 homes. I never lost my attachment to the South, and never shall. I condemned their trea- 
 son, and thought the Government was right, no matter who was at the head of it, to main- 
 tain the integrity of our great Empire at any cost. I avowed those opinions, in every way. 
 Now that the South have submitted, and acknowledged their great crime, I would welcome 
 them back, with the magnanimity and generosity which the brave can afford to the brave. 
 If Mr- Reed could only pass a few moths here now, and witness the high estimation and re- 
 spect in which our great Country is everywhere held, even he would wonder how he ever 
 could have preferred the c s. A- as a substitute for the glorious old U. S- A. with all its proud 
 associations, which make the very heart strings vibrate! 
 
 X Here, again, I will violate no confidence, but I do not understand that Mr- Reed ever 
 made any secret of his opposition to the measures at that time everywhere in progress for 
 the relief of our sick and suffering soldiers. I suppose he would say that he was opposed to 
 he cause in which they were engaged-' 
 
honored and disgraced; this, this is the man, who, rioting in his 
 shame, and assuming knoivledge ivJiere he has it not, now dares, in 
 the face of the Nation, to trample upon the graves of those who 
 helped to found it, consecrated — I will say, for I speak here as an 
 American Citizen, proud of his birthright, and not as a grandson 
 of one of the silent dead — consecrated by the patriotic recollections 
 of a whole people, and the lapse of more than half a century. 
 
 Shame upon him ! Shame upon him ! 
 
 Be it for him, ruthless violator of the Tomb, upon the moulder- 
 ing tenants of which he satiates his depraved appetite with hyena- 
 like voracity; be it for him, all prospect of political elevation, the 
 coveted goal of his life, having been hopelessly crushed by the 
 weight of his political infamy, to seek to scramble out from under 
 the ruins, into the gaze for which he still daily lives and moves and 
 pants, by reproducing, in every form of the book-maker's and pam- 
 phleteer's art, with the aid of every "homely testimonial," his 
 twice-told tale of an ancestor s claims to renown. Into that field I 
 shall not follow him. To something more than the indulgent 
 estimate — though accorded by two generations — to the higher test 
 of the sense of justice, of his countrymen and mine, I leave the 
 public services, such as others must decide them to have been, the 
 public and private sacrifices, at a period of our infant history the 
 most momentous, and unsullied memory, of Doctor Benjamin Rush. 
 If these are remembered, it is enough ; if not, I am not the one to 
 recall them. It may be taken for granted that I could do so, but, 
 however grateful the task, his descendants prefer to leave it to 
 other tongues and pens. 
 
 But while silent as regards any further reference to 77ig ancestor, 
 I have not done with the aggressor. Mr. Reed appears to have 
 counted largely upon the forbearance of Dr. Rush's descendants. 
 He may have miscalculated largely. 
 
 Responsible for what I write, I claim no privilege of the 
 Sanctuary. The allusion mag possibly he understood by Mr. Reed^ 
 for "Sabbath Bells" have summoned both to the same Sacred 
 Edifice at Chestnut HiH, and it has happened that when one has 
 gone out, the other has remained. It is barely possible that upon 
 this knowledge he may have been willing to risk his own immunity, 
 
10 
 
 as far as I was concerned. In this respect my views are my own, 
 and have not been hastily formed. They have descended to me, 
 and I now hold them on conviction. I believe that a readiness to 
 assert them, where the necessity is forced upon us through no act 
 of our own, involves no departure from other and far higher opin- 
 ions on other and far higher subjects, and may co-exist with 
 charity to all ; and that we are as much justified in resisting a de- 
 liberate attempt to take away character, as a deliberate attempt to 
 take away life, and in resisting to the same extent, whether in our 
 own person or that of one we love, living or dead. I cannot 
 imagine that we were placed in this world to be at the mercy of 
 every invader of one, more than the other; and it has always 
 seemed to me that if a social regulation, existing before we came 
 into the world, has been found in its operation, however deplorable 
 the resort to it, and however anxiously to be avoided, to act as 
 some check upon such invaders, there is some extenuation for such 
 a regulation. It is with the utmost reluctance, and a full sense of 
 its delicacy, that I here say all this, but it is drawn from me. All 
 whose opinions I value, will know how to appreciate it, as well as 
 the position in which I am placed. Perhaps I also owe it to some, 
 whose opinions I hold in high respect, who may possibly see these 
 pages, and think differently. This, I confess, is the chief motive 
 with me, and will, I hope, be my excuse. 
 
 As little do I claim exemption on the score of impaired health. 
 Were it not well known in Philadelphia that I came abroad, under 
 the advice of more than one eminent physician, tovseek relief, and, 
 if possible, ultimate recovery, from a protracted malady of nearly 
 three years' duration, and that I have been since September in this 
 Metropolis under medical treatment, I should scorn to speak here 
 of health. But the same necessity is forced upon me, in justice to 
 myself. It is precisely because all this is so well known, that I make 
 the allusion, to guard against any inference to my disadvantage, 
 which might by possibility suggest itself to any one otherwise. I 
 am forced to say, then, that repeated returns of the same physical 
 prostration during the last month, and utter inability, at such 
 times, to use the pen, have alone prevented my finishing this brief 
 paper much sooner, since I first saw Mr. Reed's Pamphlet on the 
 
11 
 
 30th of March. How soon I shall be able to return to the United 
 States, I am utterly unable to say. My intention on leaving home, 
 as many of my friends know, was to be gone a year or two, at 
 least, perhaps more, with a vieAV of thoroughly testing the benefit 
 of thorough change, not only by a sufficient residence in this coun- 
 try, but on the continent of Europe, where I have not yet been. 
 I am already a vast deal better; sometimes, for days and weeks, 
 comparatively quite well. Let it be distinctly understood, there- 
 fore, that my condition is no bar to a readiness to meet any result 
 as the consequence of what I here write, which could be a,s well 
 met here as any where. I shall remain where I am till the middle 
 of June. Let me add, that I shall not permit myself, at my pre- 
 sent distance, to be drawn into any newspaper, or other contro- 
 versy, in print. I have no idea of giving to an assailant, three 
 thousand miles off, any such advantage over me. If silent, there- 
 fore, while abroad, under any such attacks, my silence will be 
 understood. 
 
 Let the aggressor remember that he has brought this upon him- 
 self. For the initiative, I am not responsible. I never injured 
 him, or his. He has flung down the glove. These '^thorns which 
 he has reaped," if he has the sensibility to feel as such all that I 
 here say of him, by a slight paraphrase of the beautiful line of the 
 Italian Poet, "rtrg of the tree 1 planted," net. The personal 
 wrong he has done to my aged L^ncle, to me, and to others of equal 
 degree in descent, ladies as well as gentlemen, in the outrage per- 
 petrated upon the memory of one whose blood flows in the veins of 
 each and all, has been wanton, malignant, unprovoked, and I de- 
 sign the chastisement to be as severe as merited. 
 
 And now for the allusion in the Pamphlet to the Brother, the 
 affectionate Brother, of Dr. Rush, Judge Rush, than whom a more 
 upright man never lived. His hand once in, Mr. Reed appears to be 
 unable to extricate it. Hence he goes on to tear away, "like mad," 
 and the name I bear seems to excite his special hostility, when- 
 ever and wherever he encounters it, the possessor being no longer 
 among living men. Judge Rush has no lineal descendant, who 
 bears his name, to speak for him. The task shall be mine. 
 
 A scene is described, (p. 70,) which, though in the words of an- 
 
12 
 
 other, Mr. Reed adopts, and approvingly and sarcastically quotes, 
 ■wherein "The President" — not the President of the United States, 
 — "President" E-eed, whose name does not appear in the list of 
 the American Presidents, '■'•roared out in a jjeal of laughter," on 
 the introduction of Judge Rush's name, in a conversation which is 
 related. The whole narrative, extending through a page of small 
 type, though sadly deficient in point, is intended to be exquisitely 
 satirical, and is, therefore, just into Mr. Reed's hand. Adopting 
 it, as he does, without the change of an if or a but, or the omission 
 of a line or an asterick, I am quite satisfied to take the will for 
 the deed. Next time, to be sure, — say on the occasion of the next 
 "periodical revival" by himself of the fame of his ancestor — the 
 narrative might be none the worse for a little classical brevity, as, 
 for instance. 
 
 When Dido found that iEneas would not come, 
 She wept in silence, and was Di-do-dum. 
 
 For the sake of the narrator, a collateral kinsman, if I mistake 
 not, of Mr. Reed's, in the ascending line, whom, as long since dead 
 and gone, I have no intention of attacking, I am sure that a 
 generous public, appreciating the motive of the collateral descend- 
 ant, would pardon a slight liberty with the text, to give it a more 
 scholarly finish. But we will not be j^articular. 
 
 I am indebted to the incident for the explanation of something I 
 could never before understand; something which has often puzzled, 
 sometimes amused, me, and it furnishes a fair occasion for one of 
 Touchstone's "retorts." 
 
 I refer to the inveterate, and at times almost unseemly, habit of 
 this gentleman of giggling — at nothing ! 
 
 No matter when, no matter where, in court, in the street, in the 
 cars, by day, by night, our "President's" grandson is always up 
 for 2i giggle at nothing. And only give him an audience; let an 
 unsuspecting youth, or any one whom he thinks he can overpower 
 by the blaze of his intellect, or depth of his scholarship. 
 
 In Classic or in Gothic lore, 
 
 be so unfortunate as to take a seat by him in the aforesaid cars, 
 and you shall speedily hear, and if you are lucky, witness into the 
 bargain, the inevitable giggle rise to a roar or go off in a squeal — 
 
13 
 
 but always at nothing ! or {q. i. e.) something which he has himself 
 oracularly uttered for the benefit of his luckless co-mate and 
 brother in limbo. 
 
 I now for the first time understand it. He can't help it. He is 
 to be pitied rather than derided. The habit is hereditary. It has 
 come down to him from the "President" — the roarino; "Presi- 
 dent." What wonder if the ancestor "roared" and "pealed" at 
 nothing, that the grandson should giggle and squeal at the same 
 thing ! I almost wonder that some of the prolific lovers of fun, 
 have never yet worked up the ancestral propensity into his nomen- 
 clature, by way of a middle name for example, in full, for which 
 there would be ample historical precedent. Being a short word, 
 it would have one of the ingredients of the soul of wit, and three 
 of the six letters being the same, there would be alphabetical 
 economy to recommend it. 
 
 The adaptation of sound to' sense would almost rival some of 
 those celebrated lines of the illustrious Poet of ancient Greece, 
 as in 
 
 or, take a line of the celebrated Mantuan, 
 
 Stcrnitiir, exanimatque ti-emens, procumbit humi bos. 
 
 The amusing transformations, abbreviations and sobriquets, would 
 have been endless. The "Goat and Compasses" as it swings on 
 the sign boards of England, known to have been derived from 
 "God encompasseth us," or " The Bag o' nails," better known in 
 ancient days as " The Bacchanalians," would have been nothing 
 to it. 
 
 To my friends in Philadelphia, the city of my birth and residence, 
 who know me; and I never knew how many I had, until within the 
 last three memorable years; to all who know of me; all who know 
 that to give intentional ofi'ence is as little my habit, as to put up 
 with deliberate wrong, I submit what I have here written, under 
 provocation as unjustifiable as it has been enormous. By their 
 impartial verdict I am content to abide. 
 
 I too have "strong feelings," and am equally conscious of having 
 written under their influence. Who would not, in such a case? 
 
14 
 
 But, unlike the writer of the Pamphlet, they have not impaired, 
 or in any way "affected my judgment." On the contrar}^, I 
 believe I can yet take a survey of this gentleman in a calm, 
 if not "a judicial spirit," for the latter of which, he himself 
 frankly confesses (p. 126) that he scarcely hopes to get credit. 
 Hence, while re-asserting all I have thus far said, I should be 
 untrue to myself not to add that I have said it with deep regret. 
 My relations with Mr. Reed for many years, though never intimate, 
 have at least been of a character not to provoke hostility. True, 
 I never particularly liked or admired him. I always thought him 
 very much over-rated, and as a natural consequence a good deal 
 spoiled. He was too much given to sneering at everything and 
 every body, for me. There have been occasions, I must confess, 
 when Johnson's " shy reciprocation of incivilities, ivitliout the security 
 of jyeace or boldness of war," would not inaptly have described our 
 relations. But that was a good while ago, and remembering what 
 the late Mr. Wilberforce used to say, that "disjunctive conjunctions " 
 are not confined to grammar, but sometimes find their way into the 
 social element, I managed to get along with Mr. Reed, on the whole, 
 pretty well. Alii aliorum onera portate, (it will be borne in mind 
 that I am dealing with a scholar), addressed to the men of Galatia 
 eighteen hundred years ago, was a precept worthy of the illustrious 
 apostle; but if, in practice, poor human nature, with every humble 
 aspiration, sometimes faint under the load, it may be a consolation 
 to human weakness to believe, on reasonable grounds, that that 
 other great precept, equally uttered by the same divinely commis- 
 sioned lips to the Roman people, at a subsequent date, it is thought, 
 "z/ it he possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all 
 men," implies, certainly, that it is not always possible, and that the 
 7vhole man is not always equal to it. But to show that my feelings 
 have not impaired, or affected my judgment, I am willing to give 
 even this aggressor credit for some good qualities. I used to hear 
 that he had warm domestic affections. Of this I heard much in 
 1854, at a time at which I, and the entire community of Philadel- 
 phia, deeply sympathized with him, to which he has referred in his 
 Pamphlet, (p. 11). I was not, I think, behind others, in offering 
 him on that occasion the poor tribute of my sympathy. I am bound 
 
15 
 
 to remember too, and I do remember gratefully, that when in 1862, 
 I in turn was a heart-broken sufferer from the sudden and violent 
 tearing asunder of the cherished tie of a life-time, equally near and 
 dear to me, as his to him, a shock which well nigh made a wreck of 
 me, Mr. Reed was among the first to offer the same to me and mine, 
 (and sympathy is always most acceptable at such moments) which 
 I then thought sincere. I do not think, therefore, that what I have 
 here written, at all calls for the same admission as in the Pamphlet 
 which has produced it, that the feelings involved may have gotten 
 the better of, or even affected, the judgment. I have written not 
 only on full reflection, but in the full exercise of every faculty. 
 
 Since those days Mr. Reed has assumed (he is prone to assume) 
 a new character, the last of his many parts being that of a calumnia- 
 tor of the dead — the dead of '76 ! I wish him joy of his new vocation. 
 He has sown the wind, and ought to have known Avhat he might 
 expect to reap. Let him make the most of it. 
 
 BENJAMIN RUSH. 
 22 Princes St., Cavendish Square, 
 
 London. 2-Uh April, 1867. 
 
J^_ 
 
 LBD'14 
 
 ^im