me.  This has never been from under my own lock and key, or out of my own hands.  No mortal ever knew from me, that these questions had been proposed.  Perhaps I ought to except one person, who possesses all my confidence, as he has possessed yours.  I do not remember, indeed, that I communicated it even to him.  But as I was in the habit of unlimited trust and counsel with him, it is possible I may have read it to him; no more:  for the quire of which it makes a part was never in any hand but my own, nor was a word ever copied or taken down from it, by any body.  I take on myself, without fear, any divulgation on his part.  We both know him incapable of it.  From myself, then, or my paper, this publication has never been derived.  I have formerly mentioned to you, that from a very early period of my life, I had laid it down as a rule of conduct never to write a word for the public papers.  From this, I have never departed in a single instance; and on a late occasion, when all the world seemed to be writing, besides a rigid adherence to my own rule, I can say with truth, that not a line for the press was ever communicated to me, by any other, except a single petition referred for my correction; which I did not correct, however, though the contrary, as I have heard, was said in a public place, by one person through error, through malice by another.  I learn that this last has thought it worth his while to try to sow tares between you and me, by representing me as still engaged in the bustle of politics, and in turbulence and intrigue against the government.  I never believed for a moment that this could make any impression on you, or that your knowledge of me would not overweigh the slander of an intriguer, dirtily employed in sifting the conversations of my table, where alone he could hear of me; and seeking to atone for his sins against you by sins against another, who had never done him any other injury than that of declining his confidences.  Political conversations I really dislike, and therefore avoid where I can without affectation.  But when urged by others, I have never conceived that having been in public life requires me to belie my sentiments, or even to conceal them.  When I am led by conversation to express them, I do it with the same independence here, which I have practised every where, and which is inseparable from my nature.  But enough of this miserable tergiversator, who ought indeed either to have been of more truth, or less trusted by his country.*

     [* Here, in the margin of the copy, is written, apparently
     at a later date, * General H. Lee.’]