But the consciousness of the communications made to confidential friends, and others, suggested the fear of other proofs. As long as it was only communicated by private information, you were willing to submit to private censure. But when a charge, which originated from me, was made in the papers, it reduced you to the disagreeable alternative of a tacit confession, or the hazard of public proof. And in the present instance, if I am rightly informed, you was perfectly disposed to treat the publication signed Brutus, with that "silent contempt," which, you say, you have for a "long time observed, with respect to the anonymous abuse which disgraces our public papers;" but your friends, feeling the weight of the charge, goaded you into so unfortunate a measure. _"Unhappy man! against whose peace and happiness all are combined."_ What answer can you make to the weight of testimony here produced against you? I see nothing left, but to declare to the world, that the whole is a wicked combination to destroy you; you may say, "you thought _me_ entitled to the whole infamy of the insinuation," till the above mentioned witnesses "consented to divide it with me;" and that, "if you did not sufficiently measure the malignancy of their dispositions, or thought more favourably of them than you ought to have done, you are content to acknowledge your error, and do full justice in this respect hereafter;" and if any person should ask you, would all these gentlemen hazard such assertions without foundation? you may answer, "it is difficult to resolve what men of ungovernable passions will or will not say, when their minds are inflamed by party, and their breasts burning with disappointed ambition;" may they not have "mistaken a conversation with some other person, or at this distance of time, converted some JOCULAR EXPRESSION into such suspicions as they have mentioned;" and you may add, "the MEMORIES of MEN may fail; their minds are subject to the warp of prejudice and passion; they may convert into serious import what was dropped in JEST; and, from false pride, persist in what they have said, because they have said it, even against the conviction of their own consciences." In your letter of the 23d of September last, you say, "you have declared the insinuations in Oswald's paper of the 7th inst. false; and you apply the same epithet to my avowal of them." This assertion has been fully refuted by the concurrent testimony of your _intimate friends_ and others. In your friends, you thought yourself perfectly secure; but the weakness of two of them has betrayed you, and the third is proved your accomplice.