I write in a hurry and amidst a crowd of inquisitive people, therefore hope you will excuse the inaccuracy of, D’r.  Sir,

Your sincere well wisher & most obedt.  Servt.,

  WM. PRESTON.

P. S. If you please you may give Mr. Purdie a copy of the enclosed papers, & anything else you may think worthy the notice of the Public.

III.

LOGAN’S SPEECH.

There has been much controversy over the genuineness of Logan’s speech; but those who have questioned it have done so with singularly little reason.  In fact its authenticity would never have been impugned at all had it not (wrongly) blamed Cresap with killing Logan’s family.  Cresap’s defenders, with curious folly, have in consequence thought it necessary to show, not that Logan was mistaken, but that he never delivered the speech at all.

The truth seems to be that Cresap, without provocation, but after being incited to war by Conolly’s letter, murdered some peaceful Indians, among whom there were certainly some friends and possibly some relations of Logan (see testimony of Col.  Ebenezer Zane, in Jefferson’s Notes, and “American Pioneer,” I., 12; also Clark’s letter in the Jefferson Papers); but that he had no share in the massacre of Logan’s family at Yellow Creek by Greathouse and his crew two or three days afterwards.  The two massacres occurring so near together, however, produced the impression not only among the Indians but among many whites (as shown in the body of this work), that Cresap had been guilty of both; and this Logan undoubtedly believed, as can be seen by the letter he wrote and left tied to a war club in a murdered settler’s house.  This was an injustice to Cresap; but it was a very natural mistake on Logan’s part.

After the speech was recited it attracted much attention; was published in newspapers, periodicals, etc., and was extensively quoted.  Jefferson, as we learn from his Papers at Washington, took it down in 1775, getting it from Lord Dunmore’s officers, and published it in his “Notes,” in 1784; unfortunately he took for granted that its allegations as regards Cresap were true, and accordingly prefaced it by a very unjust attack on the reputed murderer.  Until thirteen years after this publication, and until twenty-three years after the speech had been published for the first time, no one thought of questioning it.  Then Luther Martin, of Maryland, attacked its authenticity, partly because he was Cresap’s son-in-law, and partly because he was a Federalist and a bitter opponent of Jefferson.  Like all of his successors in the same line, he confused two entirely distinct things, viz., the justice of the charge against Cresap, and the authenticity of Logan’s speech.  His controversy with Jefferson grew very bitter.  He succeeded in showing clearly that Cresap was wrongly accused by Logan; he utterly failed to impugn the authenticity of the latter’s speech.  Jefferson, thanks to a letter he received from Clark, must have known that Cresap had been accused wrongly; but he was irritated by the controversy, and characteristically refrained in any of his publications from doing justice to the slandered man’s memory.