In his publication of the 6th of September he hinted to Talbott, that he might be mistaken.  In his present, speaking of Talbott and me he says “They may have been imposed upon.”  Can any man of the least penetration fail to see the object of this?  After he has stormed and raged till he hopes and imagines he has got us a little scared he wishes to softly whisper in our ears, “If you’ll quit I will.”  If he could get us to say that some unknown, undefined being had slipped the assignment into our hands without our knowledge, not a doubt remains but that he would immediately discover that we were the purest men on earth.  This is the ground he evidently wishes us to understand he is willing to compromise upon.  But we ask no such charity at his hands.  We are neither mistaken nor imposed upon.  We have made the statements we have because we know them to be true and we choose to live or die by them.

Esq.  Carter, who is Adams’s friend, personal and political, will recollect, that, on the 5th of this month, he (Adams), with a great affectation of modesty, declared that he would never introduce his own child as a witness.  Notwithstanding this affectation of modesty, he has in his present publication introduced his child as witness; and as if to show with how much contempt he could treat his own declaration, he has had this same Esq.  Carter to administer the oath to him.  And so important a witness does he consider him, and so entirely does the whole of his entire present production depend upon the testimony of his child, that in it he has mentioned “my son,” “my son Lucian,” “Lucian, my son,” and the like expressions no less than fifteen different times.  Let it be remembered here, that I have shown the affidavit of “my darling son Lucian” to be false by the evidence apparent on its own face; and I now ask if that affidavit be taken away what foundation will the fabric have left to stand upon?

General Adams’s publications and out-door maneuvering, taken in connection with the editorial articles of the Republican, are not more foolish and contradictory than they are ludicrous and amusing.  One week the Republican notifies the public that Gen. Adams is preparing an instrument that will tear, rend, split, rive, blow up, confound, overwhelm, annihilate, extinguish, exterminate, burst asunder, and grind to powder all its slanderers, and particularly Talbott and Lincoln—­all of which is to be done in due time.

Then for two or three weeks all is calm—­not a word said.  Again the Republican comes forth with a mere passing remark that “public” opinion has decided in favor of Gen. Adams, and intimates that he will give himself no more trouble about the matter.  In the meantime Adams himself is prowling about and, as Burns says of the devil, “For prey, and holes and corners tryin’,” and in one instance goes so far as to take an old acquaintance of mine several steps from a crowd and, apparently weighed down with the importance of his business, gravely and solemnly asks him if “he ever heard Lincoln say he was a deist.”