Part 6

It is thus I would have answered the question, why I have mentioned publicly your meditated defection, and I trust that such provocation merited those reflections which might otherwise have remained in my own breast.

The objection to the force of my single testimony thus obviated, did no other offer to corroborate it, I should not hesitate to submit it, under such circumstances, to the judgment of the public, resting their determination upon the credit of my veracity against yours. Having supported an unblemished character, I dare defy any person to produce an instance where I have even been suspected of an untruth, or of a base or dishonourable action. Conscious of the truth of what I have asserted, I have no fears that my conduct will ever "dishonour me with the wise and virtuous."

The reason I have assigned for the dissolution of our intimacy antecedent to the war, will afford a better proof of your ingenuity than your integrity; and further, (with respect to your veracity,) if any other instance is necessary, let me add one which happened at camp, (at head-quarters,) in the year 1777, soon after the battle of Germantown, when in my hearing, and in the presence of three officers of the first rank in the army, you was charged to your face with a falsehood, and which was fully proved the next day, by the general officer who made the charge.

And now, before I introduce the concurrent testimony in support of my assertion, I shall take but a momentary notice here of those disrespectful expressions with which you have decorated your pamphlet. Weakness of head, is an accusation of a kind which it would equally puzzle the fool and the wise to reply to; but against that of badness of heart, my known tenor of conduct, in private and public life, must be my defence; if that fails, it must be needless in me to set up any other.

But if even prejudiced men should still doubt the truth of my assertion, with respect to the conversation alluded to, in the above representation, every doubt must be removed upon reading the following certificates.

Hermitage, 5th October, 1782.

DEAR GENERAL,--In the winter of 1776, after we had crossed the Delaware, General Reed, in conversation with me, said that he, and several others of my friends, were surprised at seeing me there. I told him, I did not understand such a conversation; that as I had engaged in the cause from principle, I was determined to share the fate of my country; to which he made no reply, and the conversation ended. As I had the honour of commanding the militia of New Jersey, both duty and inclination led me to use every exertion, in support of a cause I had engaged in from the purest motives. I was really much surprised at General Reed's manner, considering the station he then acted in, and his reputation as a patriot; but I considered it as the effect of despondency, from the then gloomy prospect of our affairs.

This I mentioned to several of my friends at the time, who all viewed it in the same point of light.

I am, dear General, yours,

General Cadwalader. P. DICKINSON.

I do hereby certify, that in December, 1776, while the militia lay at Bristol, General Reed, to the best of my recollection and belief, upon my inquiring the news, and what he thought of our affairs in general, said that appearances were very gloomy and unfavourable; that he was fearful or apprehensive the business was nearly settled, or the game almost up, or words to the same effect. That these sentiments appeared to me very extraordinary and dangerous, as I conceived they would, at that time, have a very bad tendeney, if publicly known to be the sentiments of General Reed, who then held an appointment in the army of the first consequence.

Philadelphia, March 12, 1783. JOHN DIXON.

A few days before the battle of Trenton, on the 26th of December, 1776, I rode with Mr. Reed from Bristol to Head Quarters near New Town. In the course of our ride, our conversation turned upon public affairs, when Mr. Reed expressed himself in the manner following.

He spoke with great respect of the bravery of the British troops, and with great contempt of the cowardice of the American, and more especially of the New England troops. So great was the terror inspired by the British soldiers into the minds of our men, that he said, when a British soldier was brought as a prisoner to our camp, our soldiers viewed him at a distance as a superior kind of being.

Upon my lamenting to him the supposed defection of Mr. Dickinson, who it was unjustly said, had deserted his country, he used the following words: "Damn him--I wish the devil had him, when he wrote the Farmer's letters. He has began an opposition to Great Britain which we have not strength to finish."

Upon my lamenting that a gentleman, of his acquaintance, had submitted to the enemy, he said, "that he had acted properly, and that a man who had a family, did right to take that care of them."

The whole of his conversation upon the subject of our affairs, indicated a great despair of the American cause.

Upon my going to Baltimore, to take my seat in Congress, the latter end of January, I mentioned the above conversation to my brother. I likewise mentioned it to the Hon. John Adams, Esq., with whom I then lived in intimacy, a day or two after his return from Boston to Congress. I did not mention it with a view of injuring Mr. Reed, for I still respected him, especially as I then believed that the victory at Trenton had restored the tone of his mind, and dissipated his fears, but to show Mr. Adams an instance of a man possessing and exercising military spirit and activity, and yet deficient in political fortitude. To which I well remember Mr. Adams replied in the following words: "The powers of the human mind are combined together in an infinite variety of ways."

BENJAMIN RUSH.

Philadelphia, March 3, 1783.

I went with Congress to Baltimore, in 1776. On the arrival of my brother there, a few weeks afterwards, I called to see him. To the best of my recollection, Mr. Clerk and Dr. Witherspoon, delegates from New Jersey, were in the room with him. The two former, after some time withdrew, and my brother then mentioned the conversation as related by him above. He informed me, also, of some other conversation that passed between Mr. Reed and him, which is not necessary at present to repeat.

JACOB RUSH.

Philadelphia, March 3, 1783.

Joseph Ellis, a Colonel of Militia, in the county of Gloucester, and State of New Jersey, doth hereby certify, that upon the retreat of a body of militia from before Count Donop, in the neighborhood of Mount Holly, in Burlington county, in the month of December, 1776, he met with Charles Pettit, Esq., then Secretary of the said State, that a conversation ensued between them respecting the situation of the public dispute at that period; that Mr. Pettit, in said conversation, representing that our affairs were desperate, Col. Ellis endeavoured to dissuade him from such an opinion, when Mr. Pettit replied, "What hurts me more than all is, my brother-in-law, General Reed, has, (or I believe he has,) given up the contest." That a good deal more passed between Mr. Pettit and Col. Ellis, during the said cnnversation, but omitted here, as being thought unnecessary.

JOSEPH ELLIS.

Woodbury, March 9, 1783.

I do certify that I was present at the conversation alluded to above; that although I cannot recollect the express words made use of in the said conversation, yet such conversation did take place, and that the substance of it answers to the certificate of Col. Ellis.

FRANKLIN DAVENPORT.