the author of it.

"It is evident from a variety of circumstances, and especially from
the change in your honour's conduct towards me, that some person, as
well inclined to detract, but better skilled in the art of detraction
than the author of the above stupid scandal, has made free with my
character. For I can not suppose, that malice so absurd, so barefaced,
so diametrically opposite to truth, to common policy, and, in short,
to everything but villany, as the above is, could impress you with so
ill an opinion of my honour and honesty.

"If it be possible that ----, for my belief is staggered, not being
conscious of having given the least cause to any one, much less to
that gentleman, to reflect so grossly; I say, if it be possible that
---- could descend so low as to be the propagator of this story, he
must either be vastly ignorant of the state of affairs in this country
_at that time_, or else, he must suppose that the whole body of the
inhabitants had combined with me in executing the deceitful fraud. Or
why did they, almost to a man, forsake their dwellings in the greatest
terror and confusion; and while one half of them sought shelter in
paltry forts, (of their own building,) the other should flee to the
adjacent counties for refuge; numbers of them even to Carolina, from
whence they have never returned?

"These are facts well known; but not better known than that these
wretched people, while they lay pent up in forts, destitute of the
common supports of life, (having in their precipitate flight
forgotten, or rather, been unable to secure any kind of necessaries,)
did despatch messengers of their own, (thinking I had not represented
their miseries in the piteous manner they deserved,) with addresses to