11 nor less than discrepances between the originals and the Letter-Books. It is true, in the instance of a single letter (December 12th, 1778), Mr. Reed says in a note, “ The text of the original and the Letter-Book certainly do not agree literally ”; but he does not furnish the reader with any guide by which the disagreements can be detected; and each one is marked by the initial of my name, although sixteen in that particular letter are chargeable to the Letter-Book, and not to any editorial discretion or indiscretion on my part. Under these circumstances, I have felt it to be a duty, not as “ a matter of literary curiosity,” but as an act of justice to myself, to revise this branch of the subject, and endeavor to place it in a light by which the facts of the case may be more clearly perceived and understood. I have accordingly taken pains to procure exact transcripts from the Letter- Books, and to compare them with Mr. Reed’s reprint from the originals, for the purpose of ascertaining in what particulars they differ. To these I propose to call the reader’s attention. Speaking of omissions, Mr. Reed says, “ The only safe rule seems to be that which was adopted by Chief Justice Marshall long ago. I have before me an unpublished letter from him to the printer of his Life of Washington in 1804, in answer to an urgent request for the suppression of a passage
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