ger, to
require an immediate dismission of the prosecution. The answer of Mr.
Huntington, the district attorney, was, that these subpoenas had been
issued by the defendant without his knowledge, that it had been his
intention to dismiss all the prosecutions at the first meeting of the
court, and to accompany it with an avowal of his opinion, that they
could not be maintained, because the federal court had no jurisdiction
over libels. This was accordingly done. I did not till then know that
there were other prosecutions of the same nature, nor do I now know what
were their subjects. But all went off together; and I afterwards saw, in
the hands of Mr. Granger, a letter written by the clergyman, disavowing
any personal ill will towards me, and solemnly declaring he had never
uttered the words charged. I think Mr. Granger either showed me, or said
there were affidavits of at least half a dozen respectable men who were
present at the sermon, and swore no such expressions were uttered, and
as many equally respectable who swore the contrary. But the clergyman
expressed his gratification at the dismission of the prosecution. I
write all this from memory, and after too long an interval of time to be
certain of the exactness of all the details; but I am sure there is no
variation material, and Mr. Granger, correcting small lapses of
memory, can confirm every thing substantial. Certain it is, that the
prosecutions had been instituted, and had made considerable progress,
without my knowledge; that they were disapproved by me as soon as known,
and directed to be discontinued. The attorney did it on the same ground
on which I had acted myself in the cases of Duane, Callender, and
others; to wit, that the sedition law was unconstitutional and null,
and that my obligation to execute what was law, involved that of not
suffering rights secured by valid laws, to be prostrated by what was no
law. I always understood that these prosecutions had been invited, if
not instituted, by Judge Edwards, and the marshal, being republican,
had summoned a grand jury partly or wholly republican: but that Mr.
Huntington declared from the beginning against the jurisdiction of the
court, and had determined to enter _nolle-prosequis_ before he received
my directions.

I trouble you with another subject. The law making my letters post free,
goes to those to me only, not those from me. The bill had got to its
passage before this was observed (and first I beli