that his uniform deportment towards us has been friendly and decorous,
and that we never gave an intimation of any wish or opinion against his
renomination to the Assembly.--HOWEL GARDNER, RICHARD KETCHUM, BENJAMIN
COWLES. _Albany, April 17, 1815_."[1]

Whatever name these gentlemen, may have given to their conversations,
some times calling them _unsuspecting and unguarded_, and sometimes
_free and unreserved_, in order to determine their nature and place
them in a clear light, I shall now go on to shew the public what they
did say, and not stop to quarrel about names so long as I am sure that
public will be content with the things themselves. I challenge
incredulity itself after reading the following affidavits and
statements, to doubt one moment on the subject.

"Isaiah Bunce & Thomas Palmer being duly sworn, say, that
they were at Albany in the early part of the late session of
the Legislature, and put up at the house where the Delegates
of the county of Saratoga quartered. That they and three of
the Delegates from said county, viz. Messrs. Ketcham, Gardner
and Cowles, conversed freely with each other on various
political subjects, and in one conversation they had with
these said Members, they told these Deponents, that they had
not been well treated by their colleague Mr. Young--spoke
freely of their unpleasant situation, owing to that
treatment, mentioning a number of instances illustrating the
same, both in the fall session and the then session of the
Legislature.

"And these deponents further say, that they the said Ketcham,
Gardner and Cowles, did in that conversation, decidedly