Early in the fall of 1799 a new twist was given to the controversy. This developed out of an episode that for the time at least seriously embarrassed the personal integrity of Morse, and enveloped the issue generally in such a cloud of pettiness and disagreeable suspicions that the entire subject of Illuminism assumed an unsavory aspect, with the result that the public was all the more easily persuaded to turn to other and more fruitful topics. Compressed as much as the interests of clarity will allow, the facts were as follows. The _American Mercury_ of September 26, 1799, published an article asserting that in his efforts to substantiate his charges against the Illuminati, Morse had addressed a letter of inquiry to Professor Ebeling[829] of Hamburg, Germany, to which the latter made response that Robison’s _Proofs of a Conspiracy_ had no standing in Europe; that it was regarded there as a farrago of falsehoods, written by its author to obtain bread rather than in the hope that it would be believed.[830] It was further asserted that Ebeling’s letter to Morse gave Robison an unsavory character; he was said to have lived too fast for his income, to be in trouble with the civil authorities in his native country, and to have been expelled from a Masonic lodge in Edinburgh on account of unworthy conduct.[831] This being the true state of affairs, why, it was urged, ought not “the terrible subject of illumination” to be dismissed forthwith as a wretched mass of absurdities? Let Morse publish the letter that he had received from Ebeling and the public would express itself quickly enough as to the silliness of the Illuminati conspiracy.[832] Morse’s rejoinder was spirited. He demanded the name of the author of the article in the _Mercury_ and vigorously protested that the Ebeling letter referred to was a fabrication.[833] Denied the comfort of immediate attention and satisfaction,[834] he addressed the editor again and with even greater vehemence, insisting that the editor publicly brand the article referred to as “without foundation and a tissue of the most vile and calumnious falsehoods.” But for the one consideration that the letter which he had actually received from Professor Ebeling was private, he averred that he stood ready to spread it before the public gaze.[835] As a guarantee of its character, however, he stood prepared to furnish the affidavits of Professors David Tappan and Eliphalet Pearson of Harvard, to whom he had submitted the letter of Ebeling for their inspection, and who were ready to depose that it was in no sense like the letter whose contents had been given to the public by the _American Mercury_.[836]