there is any point on which I have been assaild by political opponents or others on which my conduct requires further explanation with a view to do justice to it in the eyes of my fellow citizens. I am far from wishing to injure any one even in defense of myself, especially those with whom I have been long connected in friendship & political harmony. I presume that that is not a necessary consequence of my own defense & I sho' certainly avoid giving it such a bearing. Nothing however but indispensable necessity would induce me to draw the publick attention to me in any shape at this time; nothing but a deep conviction of injury & the advice of such friends as possess my entire confidence that I owed it to the vindication of my own character, and that it might be done without a possibility of injury to the publick cause. You have seen the correspondence between the President & myself lately published. That document goes fully as I presumed to exculpate me from censure. I requested the publication of it with that view in part. I wished also that my conduct in the correspondence, which preserved on its antient ground the relation of friendship with him, might be known to the publick, while it left in force my objections to certain measures of his adm". His publick life has been illustrious & useful, & I shall always take great interest in his happiness. * My family, in which my daughter unites her sentiments to those of her mother, desire to be affectionately remembered to Mr Bowdoin & Miss Winthrop. Her connection with Mr Hay was every way agreable to us. To great talents in his profession & of a political nature & perfect morality he adds the most amiable qualities of the domestick kind. We live near each other, a circumstance which will keep us much more in this town than * Eliza, one of the daughters of Mr. Monroe, married Hon. George Hay, who conducted the prosecution against Aaron Burr.- EDs. we shod otherwise be. They unite in presenting their best regards to you & Mr Sullivan. I have heard with great regret of the death of his father, whose life would have been most eminently useful at the present epoch. Such men cannot be spared when the cause of which they are the ornament & support is in danger. I am, dear Sir, with sincere & constant friendship, Very truly yours. APPENDIX. In the first part of the Temple and Bowdoin Papers (6 Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. ix. pp. 480-482) the Committee printed from John Temple's rough draught a memorial addressed by him to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1782, with a suggestion that it might not have been sent to the Legislature in the precise form in which it had come into their hands. Since that time the memorial actually presented has been found among some manuscripts in the possession of the Boston Athenæum. The variations are numerous but not material, but as the document is one of considerable interest and importance, it is here given in the form finally adopted. JOHN TEMPLE TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, ETC. TO THE HONORABLE THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, AND TO THE HONORABLE THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. HONORABLE GENTLEMEN, — A direct & willful falshood having been advanced by a writer who signs James Sullivan in a letter addressed to me, in the Continental Journal of Thursday the 22a ultimo, in which he says, that in the memorial I had the honor of presenting thro' you on the 29th of April last, to the two Houses of Assembly, I have therein avered that I procured & transmitted to this country the well remembered treasonable & incendiary letters of the late Gov Hutchinson, Oliver, & others, and that I had therein also demanded of my country a reward for that transaction, and the said Sullivan having also commented upon the same, in his newspaper |