Such appears to have been the character of General Joseph Reed, from documents decidedly authentic--so authentic as to have led to their partial destruction, by his vain and silly descendants, who imagined that _truth_ could be extinguished, while vanity was kindling a spurious flame to consummate an imaginery[TN] _apotheosis_, for one whose actual deeds consigned him to the keeping of the furies and his country's execration. If such men are to be allowed an enrolment on the page of fame, as revolutionary patriots, who achieved our independence, there is no merits in those who stood side by side with Washington, in the darkest hour of the Revolution, when dismay sat on the bravest brow--spurning the temptation of British bribes--bidding defiance to British battalions, and enduring the pangs of hunger, thirst, and howling blasts--naked amidst winter's snow, with earth for a pillow, and the canopy of heaven for a covering--treason thundering in their ears--rewards offered for their heads, and nothing but liberty and independence, with the secret assurance of heaven's succour from a just God, to cheer and console them--bleeding, dying, desolate. Shall the _time-serving_ traitor take his position by the side of such men? Shall all merit be levelled into one common mass of calculating selfishness? For such must be the effect, if General Joseph Reed is to occupy a niche of glory in the same temple with George Washington. But there is no moral crucible to melt down such deeds into a general and indiscriminate mass. Truth revolts from such profanation. Justice spurns the contamination. Nature herself rises up in arms against the thought, as doing violence to all her holiest sympathies; her purest heart-throbs, her noblest aspirations. God himself denounces the impiety.