"If you had WARMED those parchments, they would have presented an
exhibition worthy of your attention."

This information made me restless with excitement and anxiety to peruse
those letters and notes which I still had in my possession. I may here
remark, the letters were, for the most part, unintelligible to a common
reader, because of the secret language in which they were written. I had
examined them again and again, without much satisfaction. I knew they
were penned for the purpose of clandestinely carrying on a wholesale
plunder--a deliberate imposition upon public and private rights. By
frequent perusal I had become familiar with many of the terms which were
often explained to me by those who were acquainted with their use,
though they are used by thousands, without any knowledge of their
origin.

After I commenced an exposure of the vice of gambling, I was often
attacked by certain low, vulgar editors in a manner that indicated
deep-seated malice. I could not account for their abuse. They would
admit that society should be rid of the evil in question, but at the
same time exhibited the most bitter hostility to me as one who had dared
to expose the abominations of gaming. I was conscious there was
something that moved them in their work of calumny not yet developed.
The mystery rendered me unhappy. I was anxious to know the cause of this
public opposition, and the more so, that I might satisfy the people
that the whole arose from influences akin to the vice I was labouring to
destroy. The secret was soon discovered, and I am now prepared to
satisfy the public mind that the attacks upon my present relation to
society have arisen from something more than an ignorant prejudice.
These hireling editors knew I had the materials to draw their portraits