My present purpose relates to a different topic. It is well known that the animadversions of the critics, who have found so much to censure in my editorial decisions, have been directed chiefly to some ten or twelve private letters from Washington to Joseph Reed, written in the first year of the war. These letters were strictly confidential; no copy of any of them was retained by Washington; nor did he preserve the answers. In “ Washington’s Writings ” these letters were printed from copies of the originals, which latter were furnished to me by their possessor, Mr. William B. Reed, who afterwards printed them in his “ Life of Joseph Reed.” It was discovered that occasional discrepances existed between the two printed texts; and these are the materials which have afforded so fruitful a theme for the ingenious and severe comments of the critics. Mr. Reed has lately reprinted these letters in a separate volume, placing the variations side by side, in parallel columns. In pursuing this course, as he informs the reader, he has been “ actuated by a sense of duty to all parties,” and a desire to render justice to Lord Mahon, to himself, and to me. If an act of injustice had been committed, however inadvertently or from whatever cause, it was certainly right that every ground of complaint on this score should be removed. Alluding to his former
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