1073. CALUMNY, Newspaper.—
Were I to undertake to answer the calumnies of the
newspapers, it would be more than all my
own time, and that of twenty aids could
effect. For while I should be answering one,
twenty new ones would be invented. I have
thought it better to trust to the justice of my
countrymen, that they would judge me by
what they see of my conduct on the stage
where they have placed me, and what they
knew of me before the epoch since which a
particular party has supposed it might answer
some view of theirs to villify me in the public
eye. Some, I know, will not reflect how
apocryphal is the testimony of enemies so
palpably betraying the views with which they
give it. But this is an injury to which duty
requires every one to submit whom the public
think proper to call into its councils.—
To Samuel Smith. Washington ed. iv, 255.
Ford ed., vii, 279.
(M.
1798)
