Part 6 (1/2)
SAMUEL SMITH.
I will close my budget of ”doc.u.ments” as ”_McDonough_” would call them, for the present. When I open it again, the information to be drawn forth will be even more definite than that just given, and possibly, even still less palatable to Mr. Reed. He will pardon me for troubling him with two questions: Among the papers left by your grandfather, did you ever come across a copy of a very remarkable correspondence had between that person and General Anthony Wayne in 1781? If yea, why have you withheld it from publication? Although _you_ can answer this last question, I cannot; but I will tell you, Mr. Reed, what I can do: I can lay my hands upon a copy of the same correspondence, and I propose to entertain the readers of the Journal with a few selections, upon some not very distant occasion.
In Mr. Reed's selection of a _period of time_ to be ill.u.s.trated by the labors of ”McDonough,” it appears to me he has been unfortunate. If he had gone further back, he might have recounted some of the _real_ exploits of his grandfather, and spared _me_ the labor which his deficiencies have compelled me to undertake. If he had come a little further down, he might have dilated upon the performances of his father, a Recorder of the city of Philadelphia, and Treasurer and Secretary of the University of Pennsylvania. _That_ labor, also, I fear, will devolve upon me.
VALLEY FORGE.
Monday, Sept. 25, 1842.
From the Evening Journal.
MR. WHITNEY--The communication of ”McDonough” (alias U. S. Bank Reed,) in this Morning's Court Chronicle, manifests that there is no small degree of fluttering among the wounded pigeons of the ”Holy Alliance.” The a.s.sumption of ”McDonough” that _you_ and ”Valley Forge” are one and the same person, is a more novel than logical mode of disproving the truth of my allegations. But let Mr. Reed rest easy upon that score. _Who_ I am, is very little to the purpose; _what_ I a.s.sert is more germain to the matter--and let this lacquay of Nicholas Biddle deny _that_ if he dare, or disprove it if he can. If my charges are _true_, the ident.i.ty of their author with the editor of the Evening Journal could not detract from their truth; if _false_, a more obvious as well as conclusive mode of establis.h.i.+ng their falsity presents itself.
But the truth is, that no arrow which has been shot into the camp of the ”Holy Alliance” rankles more deeply, or has worked worse execution, than the exposure of the authors.h.i.+p of ”McDonough.” Not that Mr. Reed is by any means, either intellectually or extrinsically, the most formidable member of the combination; but now it is known that _he_ is the author of those attacks upon the character of a good citizen, of a man against whom for years the minions of the Bank have been directing their warfare without the ability to discover a crevice in his coat of mail, the arm of the puny a.s.sailant falls paralyzed to his side, and his intended victim laughs at him in a tone of scorn, in which the whole community partic.i.p.ates.
_William B. Reed_ to prate of patriotism! _William B. Reed_ to declaim upon honor and patriotism! For the chimney-sweep to prate of cleanliness would not be more anomalous. With what grace does the defence of the United States Bank come from this ”McDonough” of the Chronicle, when we know him to be the veriest lick-spittle that Nicholas Biddle, in his day of pride and power, ever retained in his service? As the friend of Nicholas Biddle, as his purchased tool and agent, rather, Mr. Reed has never, for an instant, hesitated to sacrifice to the promotion of the interests of the Bank, every public trust which for the time being was confided to his keeping. Why is it that Mr. Reed has never yet explained away or answered the very extraordinary and _specific_ disclosures of _bribery_ which a correspondent of the Ledger made against him in the summer of 1841?
Disclosures so astonis.h.i.+ng that the eyes of the public, although long accustomed to look upon the doings of the man with distrust, dilated with astonishment. He was accused by the correspondent of the Ledger with having as a member of the House of Representatives, _accepted bribes from the Bank of the United States_; the several amounts were specified; doc.u.ments were even refered[TN] to; and yet Mr. Reed, instead of maintaining his good ground and confronting his accuser, flies the city, absents himself for some time upon the plea of a previously arranged excursion of pleasure; and when, after his return, driven at length to a show of explanation, he parades in print an evasion of charges, so paltry that its sophistry would degrade the merest pettifoger in Mr. Biddle's Court of Criminal Sessions.
But since Mr. William B. Reed, alias Mr. U. S. B. McDonough, is so pure a patriot, and has such a holy horror of ”treason” and ”traitors,” I will give him a few facts upon which to reflect, and with which he may enrich and ill.u.s.trate his future lucubrations.
_Fact No. 1._--That Mr. William B. Reed is, or claims to be, the grandson of General Joseph Reed, of Revolutionary memory.
_Fact No. 2._--That Mr. William B. Reed is feelingly alive upon the subject of his grandfather's memory, and has devoted the labors of nearly his whole life to establish the popular delusion that his grandfather's patriotism underwent the severest test and ordeal of the revolutionary struggle.
_Fact No. 3._--That Mr. William B. Reed has written essays, reviews and paragraphs innumerable, to induce the public to believe, that when in 1778 or 1779, Governor Johnstone and the other British Commissioners, proposed to General Reed a reward of 10,000 pounds sterling, and a lucrative office, upon condition that he would lend himself to the views of Great Britain, he indignantly spurned the proposal, and replied, ”I am not worth the purchase, but such as I am, King George is not rich enough to make it.”
_Fact No. 4._--That no such proposal was ever made to General Joseph Reed, and that General Joseph Reed never made any such reply.
_Fact No. 5._--That General Joseph Reed endeavoured to effect a negotiation with the British Commissioners, and actually commenced it, to ascertain what he might expect, in money and office, in case he succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between the colonies and the mother country, or in other words, that he would be instrumental in causing the revolted colonies to return to their allegiance to Great Britain!
_Fact No. 6._--That General Joseph Reed, after much chaffering as to the price, finally proffered his services to the British Commissioners, to effect the objects mentioned in ”Fact No. 5,” for the sum of 10,000 pounds sterling in hand, a Chief Justices.h.i.+p, and the right to a tract of land West and North-West of the then city of Philadelphia, upon a part of which the Cherry Hill Penitentiary is now erected, and the whole of which, is at this time probably worth from five to seven millions of dollars.
_Fact No. 7._--That while this negotiation was pending, and while the hucksters were haggling as to the terms upon which it should close, it came to the ears of the American Commander-in-Chief, that General Reed was engaged in a very suspicious correspondence with the British Commissioners; that General Was.h.i.+ngton sent for General Reed, and in the presence of his staff, informed him of what he had heard, and demanded an explanation; and that General Reed, finding denial out of the question, admitted that overtures had been made to him by Governor Johnstone and his colleagues, but that he had replied to them; ”I am not worth the purchase, but such as I am, King George is not rich enough to make it.”
_Fact No. 8._--That this patriotic reply of General Joseph Reed, to the attributed overtures of the British Commissioners, had its _sole origin_ in the explanation with which he sought to dispel the suspicions of General Was.h.i.+ngton; that General Was.h.i.+ngton ever after continued to regard him with great distrust; and that several years subsequently, when General Reed, in the presence of General Was.h.i.+ngton, was descanting upon the patriotic reply with which he had foiled the British Commissioners, General Was.h.i.+ngton turned away in disgust, and remarked to a friend, in a tone of voice sufficiently audible to be heard by all present--_”I know the fellow well, and am satisfied that he wanted but a price and an opportunity to play us as false as Arnold.”_
When Mr. Reed shall have sufficiently pondered over the facts thus enumerated, I shall descend the ladder a step from his grandfather, and come to his more immediate progenitor! Of him, I shall have the great question to ask--what is the reason of his aversion to suns.h.i.+ne, that he secludes himself all day like an owl or a bat? But the grandfather will suffice for the present. Mr. Reed has certainly taken uncommon pains to keep up the public delusion upon this subject. Let him know (what he will soon know to his mortification,) that there yet survives a veteran of the revolution--one whose mental faculties are undimmed by age--whose very physical frame, time has treated with tenderness and respect--whose keen and lively intelligence retains its ancient vigour--a Revolutionary soldier, who well knew Joseph Reed; who equally well knew George Was.h.i.+ngton; and who intends to give to the world, at no very distant day, his knowledge of them, and of much beside.
Mr. Reed has fair warning--let him look to it.
Monday, Sept. 19, 1842. VALLEY FORGE.
From the Evening Journal.
MR. WHITNEY:--Since your publication of my last, ”McDonough” has slacked his fire wonderfully. It is surprising how one's tone becomes altered after the discovery is made that the former idea of _invulnerability_ was a great mistake. The home truths pressed upon Mr. William Bradford Reed (I believe this is the first time that the public have been made acquainted with the learned gentleman's name in full) have proved to be of unpalatable flavor and difficult digestion; and it is not, therefore to be wondered at that they should have for him no relish. I have not yet done with the revolutionary reminiscences of his grandfather; that worthy whom ”King George was not rich enough to buy,” although, as he himself modestly admitted, he was ”_not worth purchasing_:”
The writer of this paragraph had an opportunity, very many years since, when Mr. Reed was a student of the Pennsylvania University, of becoming somewhat intimately acquainted with his bent of mind; and if there ever was a school-boy despised and detested by his fellows, William was that youth.
”The boy's the father of the man,” and those who have known him only in his ripened years, if they apply the truth of this axiom, will have no difficulty in correctly conjecturing what must have been his early youth.
Even then his predominant weakness was to almost daily, and by the hour, expatiate upon the merits of his _great_ ”grandfather,” and to entertain boys, smaller and younger than himself, with the revolutionary exploits--more numerous and diversified far than those with a narration of which Oth.e.l.lo beguiled the fair Desdemona, performed by that distinguished personage: and in particular, how ”the General” had repulsed the proffered bribe of the Treasury of Great Britain, and his pick and choice of the most lucrative office in the Colonies.
Down to this day, this has continued to be the habit of Mr. Reed; and to such an extent has he indulged it, that he has become the b.u.t.t and laughing stock of his acquaintance.