This Letter is an answer from Volney, taken from the Anti-Jacobin Review of March and April, 1799.

Sir.—­I received in due time your pamphlet on the increase of infidelity, together with the note without date which accompanied it.* My answer has been delayed by the incidents of business, and even by ill health, which you will surely excuse:  this delay has, besides, no inconvenience in it.  The question between us is not of a very urgent nature:  the world would not go on less well with or without my answer as with or without your book.  I might, indeed, have dispensed with returning you any answer at all; and I should have been warranted in so doing, by the manner in which you have stated the debate, and by the opinion pretty generally received that, on certain occasions, and with certain persons, the most noble reply is silence.  You seem to have been aware of this yourself, considering the extreme precautions you have taken to deprive me of this resource; but as according to our French customs, any answer is an act of civility, I am not willing to concede the advantage of politeness—­besides, although silence is sometimes very significant, its eloquence is not understood by every one, and the public which has not leisure to analyze disputes (often of little interest) has a reasonable right to require at least some preliminary explanations; reserving to itself, should the discussion degenerate into the recriminative clamors of an irritated self-love, to allow the right of silence to him in whom it becomes the virtue of moderation.

     * Dr. Priestly sent his pamphlet to Volney, desiring his
     answer to the strictures on his opinions in his Ruins of
     Empires.

I have read, therefore, your animadversions on my Ruins, which you are pleased to class among the writings of modern unbelievers, and since you absolutely insist on my expressing my opinion before the public, I shall now fulfill this rather disagreeable task with all possible brevity, for the sake of economizing the time of our readers.  In the first place, sir, it appears evidently, from your pamphlet, that your design is less to attack my book than my personal and moral character; and in order that the public may pronounce with accuracy on this point, I submit several passages fitted to throw light on the subject.

You say, in the preface of your discourses, p. 12, “There are, however, unbelievers more ignorant than Mr. Paine, Mr. Volney, Lequino, and others in France say,” &c.

Also in the preface of your present observations, p. 20.  “I can truly say that in the writings of Hume, Mr. Gibbon, Voltaire, Mr. Volney—­there is nothing of solid argument:  all abound in gross mistakes and misrepresentations.”  Idem, p. 38—­“Whereas had he (Mr. Volney) given attention to the history of the times in which Christianity was promulgated . . . he could have no more doubt . . . &c., it is as much in vain to argue with such a person as this, as with a Chinese or even a Hottentot.”