"Mr. WHITNEY:--I am unable to express my mortification at the unhappy and unexpected accident which has prevented my meeting the Messrs. Reed and Mr. John Spear Smith this evening, at the time and place appointed by them, for the purpose of having tested the authenticity of General Samuel Smith's letters to Colonel ----, Col. ---- is my near relative, and though in his ninety-third year, has till last Thursday, enjoyed the most excellent health for one of so advanced an age. As he will not permit the originals to be taken out his sight, I intended of course that he should accompany me as one of my three friends. His sudden and severe illness has rendered this impossible; he refuses to part with the documents even for a temporary purpose, and I have thus been compelled to submit for the present to this most mortifying piece of ill-fortune. No doubt the exultation of the Messrs. Reed will be violent, but let me say to them, it will be but short-lived. But a brief time will pass, and all the papers which I have published, and many more which are yet to come, will be fully proved and laid before the public. When Colonel ----'s health is restored, I do not doubt that I shall prevail upon him to place them in my hands, when I shall see Mr. John Spear Smith with them at Baltimore and have the Messrs. Reed see them here. VALLEY FORGE. _October 24th, 1842."_ We do not approve of this course of procedure on the part of Valley Forge, nor do we think it a proper one. We think he ought to have met Mr. Smith and the Messrs. Reed at the place and time appointed, and made the explanation in person. Under any circumstances, we think it was due to them as well as to ourselves. The proposition which was made by Valley Forge having been accepted by the above-named gentlemen, what reason can there be for longer preserving his incognito? Indeed he expressed his willingness, in one of his notes, which we publish below, to unveil himself as soon as the proposition he made was accepted. We had, from the first, as we have now, the fullest confidence that the letters purporting to be from the late General S. Smith were genuine, as well as that the intentions of Valley Forge, so far as concerned ourselves, were fair, and that he would establish the authenticity of those letters, and the other documents contained in his communications.