It will be noted that in the fifth line from the bottom, "_Within the last thirty years_," which in all Anti-Masonic publications is printed in italics, the word "_thirty_" was not in the body of the letter as originally written, but was an afterthought and interlined before the press copy was taken. In the press copy of this letter, it will be noted that the word written over the words "_last years_," is almost indecipherable; in the photostat it is completely so. This has led some investigators to question whether the interlined word is really "_thirty_." The surmise that the blur in the press copy of WASHINGTON's letter to Snyder, was "thirty" was first promulgated by Jared Sparks, when he furnished the text of the letter to the Anti-Masonic agitators, during the political excitement which swept over the New England States in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Snyder, upon receipt of this letter, undoubtedly after consultation with persons who were politically opposed to WASHINGTON or antagonistic to the Masonic Fraternity, wrote a second letter and sent it to Mount Vernon under date of October 17, 1798; no copy of this letter has thus far been found among the WASHINGTON papers in the Library of Congress. WASHINGTON immediately sent the following sharp reply to Snyder, in which he plainly sets forth his belief that the Masonic Lodges in the United States were not interested in the propagation of the tenets of what was then known as Jacobism or the Illuminati. The words as underscored in the original letter by WASHINGTON were to emphasize his meaning upon this subject. Photostats of both of the above letter press copies are in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. "MOUNT VERNON 24th Oct. 1798. "_Rev. Sir_, "I have you favor of the tive "17th instant before me and my only mo: "to trouble you with the receipt of this let "ter, is to explain, and correct a mistake "which I perceive the hurry in which I "am obliged, often to write letters, have "led you into.-- "It was not my intention to doubt "that, the doctrines of the Illuminati, and "principles of Jacobism had not spread "in the United States. On the contrary, no "one is more, fully satisfied of this fact "that I am.