A LETTER TO GOVERNOR HENRY, OF MARYLAND. DEAR SIR, Philadelphia, December 31, 1797. MR. Tazewell has communicated to me the en 7 quiries you have been so kind as to make, relative to a paffage in the Notes on Virgina, which has lately excited fome newspaper publications. I feel, with great fenfibility, the intereft you take in this bufinefs, and with pleasure, go into explanations with one whose objects I know to be truth and justice alone. Had Mr. Martin thought proper to fuggeft to me, that doubts might be entertained. of the transaction respecting Logan, as flated in the Notes on Virginia, and to enquire on what grounds that statement was founded, I fould have felt myself obliged by the enquiry, have informed him adidly of the grounds, and cordially have co-operated in every means of inveftigating the fact, and correcting whatsoever in it fhould be found to have been erroneous. But he chofe to step at once into the newspapers, and in his publications there and the letters he wrote to me, adapted a style which forbade the respect of an answer. Senfible, however, that no act of his could abfolve me from the justice due to others, as foon as I found that the story of Logan could be doubted, I determined to enquire into it as accurately as the teftimony remaining, after a lapfe of twenty odd years, would permit, and that the result should be made known, either in the first new edition which should be printed of the Notes on Virginia, or by publishing an appendix. I thought that fo far as that work had contributed to impeach the memory of Cresap, by handing on an erroneous charge, it was proper it fhould be made the vehicle of retribution, Not that I was at all the author of the injury. I had only concurred, with thousands and thousands of others, in believing a tranfaction on authority which merited refpect For the ftory of Logan is only repeated in the Notes on Virginia, precifely as it had been current for more than a dozen years before they were published. When Lord Dunmore returned from the expedition against the Indians, in 1774, he and his officers brought the speech of Logan, and related the circumftances connected with it. Thefe were fo affecting, and the fpeech itself is fo fine a morfel of eloquence, that it became the theme of every conversation, in Williamsburgh particularly, and generally, indeed, wherefoever any of the officers refided or reforted. I learned it in Williamsburgh; I believe at Lord Dunmore's; and I find in my pocket-book of that year (1774) an entry of the narrative, as taken from the mouth of fome person, whose name, however, is not noted, nor recollected, precifely in the words ftated in the Notes on Virginia. The fpeech was published in the Virginia Gazette of that time (I have it myself in the volume of gazettes of that year) and though in a style by no means elegant, yet it was fo admired, that it flew through all the public papers of the continent, and through the magazines and other periodical publications of Great-Britain; and those who were boys at that day will now atteft, that the fpeech of Logan used to be given them as a school exercife for repetition. It was not till about thirteen or fourteen years after the newspaper publications, that the Notes on Virginia were published in America. Combating, in thefe, the contumelious theory of certain European writers, whofe celebrity gave currency and weight to their opinions, that our country, from the combined effects of foil and climate, degenerated animal nature, in the general, and particularly the moral faculties of man, I confidered the fpeech of Logan as an apt proof of the contrary, and used it as fuch; and I copied, verbatim, the narrative I had taken down in 1774, and the fpeech as it had been given us in a better tranflation by lord Dunmore. I knew nothing of the Crefaps, and could not poffibly have a motive to do them an injury with defign. I repeated what thoufands had done before, on as good authority as we have for most of the facts we learn through י life, and fuch as, to this moment, I have seen no reason to doubt. That any body questioned it, was never suspected by me, till I faw the letter of Mr. Martin in the Baltimore paper. I endeavored then to recollect who among my cotemporaries, of the fame circle of society, and consequently of the fame recollections, might still be live. Three and twenty years of death and dispersion had left very few. I remembered, however, that general Gibson was ftill living, and knew that he had been the translator of the fpeech. I wrote to him immediately. He, in anfwer declares to me, that he was the very person sent by lord Dunmore to the Indian town; that after he had delivered his meffage there, Logan took him out to a neighboring wood; fat down with him, and rehearfing, with tears, the catastrophe of his family, gave him that fpeech for lord Dunmore; that he carried it to lord Dunmore; tranflated it for him; has turned to it in the Encyclopedia, as taken from the Notes on Virginia, and finds that it was his tranflation I had used, with only two or three verbal variations of no importance. Thefe, I fuppofe had arifen in the courfe of fucceffive copies. I cite general Gibfon's letter by memory, not having it with me ; but I am fure I cite it substantially right. It establishes unquestionably, that the speech of Logan is genuine; and that being established, it is Logan himself who is author of all the important facts. "Colo"nel Crefap," fays he, in cold blood and unprovoked murdered "all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and chil❝dren. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any liv❝ing creature." The perfon and the fact, in all its material cir cumstances are here given by Logan himself. General Gibson, indeed, fays, that the title was miftaken; that Crefap was a captain, and not a colonel. This was Logan's mistake. He also observes, that it was on the Ohio, and not on the Kanhaway itself, that his family was killed. This is an error which has crept into the tradi tionary account; but furely of little moment in the moral view of the fubject. The material queftion is; was Logan's family murdered, and by whom? That it was murdered has not, I believe, |