o me, and certainly presents itself for the first time
under unfavorable circumstances. Religion, I suppose, is the scope of
his book; and that a writer on that subject should usher himself to the
world in the very act of the grossest abuse of confidence, by publishing
private letters which passed between two friends, with no views to their
ever being made public, is an instance of inconsistency as well as of
infidelity, of which I would rather be the victim than the author.

By your kind quotation of the dates of my two letters, I have been
enabled to turn to them. They had completely vanished from my memory.
The last is on the subject of religion, and by its publication will
gratify the priesthood with new occasion of repeating their comminations
against me. They wish it to be believed, that he can have no religion
who advocates its freedom. This was not the doctrine of Priestley; and I
honored him for the example of liberality he set to his order. The
first letter is political. It recalls to our recollection the gloomy
transactions of the times, the doctrines they witnessed, and the
sensibilities they excited. It was a confidential communication of
reflections on these from one friend to another, deposited in his bosom,
and never meant to trouble the public mind. Whether the character of
the times is justly portrayed or not, posterity will decide. But on one
feature of them, they can never decide, the sensations excited in free
yet firm minds by the terrorism of the day. None can conceive who did
not witness them, and they were felt by one party only. This letter
exhibits their side of the medal. The federalists, no doubt, have
presented the other, in their private correspondences, as well as open
action. If these correspondences should ever be laid open to the public
eye, they will probably be found not models of comity towards their
adversaries. The readers of my letter should be cautioned not to confine
its view to this country alone. England and its alarmists were equally
under consideration. Still less must they consider it as looking
personally towards you. You happen, indeed, to be quoted, because you
happened to express more pithily than had been done by themselves, one
of the mottos of the party. This was in your answer to the address of
the young men of Philadelphia. [See Selection of Patriotic Addresses,
page 198.] One of the questions, you know, on which our parties took
different sides, was on the improva