The particular circumstances of my family made it necessary to spend a few months in this city, last summer, without an intention of taking up my residence here till the conclusion of the war; and though I never interfered in politics here, except among my particulr[TN] friends, I was attacked, in the public papers, by a party blindly devoted to you and your measures; I made no reply, from a confidence that such intimations could not injure me with those whose good opinion I regarded. But whether a friend published the piece signed Brutus, in the mere spirit of retaliation, or whether it was calculated for political purposes, at the last election, let the author determine. The conversation, alluded to in the queries, was known to many long before that period; among whom were some of your friends, in proof of which I offer Mr. Prior's certificate.[F] Having mentioned the conversation _publicly_, those who heard it were certainly at liberty to make what use of it they saw proper. Being entrusted with the command of the militia and a New England brigade, which lay at Bristol in December, 1776, I had permission from the Commander-in-chief to make an attack on the enemy, whenever I thought it could be done with success; I was prepared on the evening of the 22d December, to attempt the enemy's post, above the Black Horse, with seven hundred men; and about nine or ten o'clock, P. M., I received a letter from the general, requesting, if the enterprise was not too far advanced, to lay it aside, as he intended a general attack on the enemy's posts in a few days. From this circumstance, it appears, that the general gave me the information relating to the intended attack, the evening before you received his letter of the 23d December, in which the precise time was fixed. As he knew my intention to command the party myself, and therefore I might not be at Bristol the next day, this will account for his letter, of the 23d being directed to you. But here you mean to convey an idea that a preference in this communication was intended to you, though he had given me, in effect, the same information the evening before. This, too, you adduce as a proof of the general's "unbounded confidence in you," and you say you were sent by General Washington for the "express purpose of assisting me;" and "whatever my abilities were, that I had less experience of actual service than you had,--that you were received with cool civility, and very few marks of private attention;" though you acknowledge that I, at the same time, consulted you without reserve on our "military affairs." I will admit, that your opportunities of acquiring experience were greater than mine; and considering the extensive command I then had, (which was in number nearly equal to the force under the immediate command of General Washington,) I should have thought it no reflection on my abilities; nor would it have hurt my feelings, if an officer of superior abilities and