In answer to it, and your second of yesterday, I have to state, that I am very sorry that Mr. Swanston should feel at all injured by what has been said of him, and though my information as to what is stated of him was from the best authority,[8] still I would not wish in the smallest degree, even by implication, to injure his feelings or his character, and I shall be ready to insert in the shape of a note, in the number about to be published, any statement you and he may wish to make, such statement not to be inconsistent with what is due to myself in such a matter.
Your threat of damages is too fanciful to require from me any serious answer. I am, Sir, your very obedient servant.
(Signed) THOMAS IRELAND, Jun.
To John Johnson, Esq.
4, Grove Street, Edinburgh.
Edinburgh, 11th Feb. 1829.
Sir,—I am favored with your letter of this date, in answer to my letters of the 7th and 10th inst. And in answer to it I have to inform you that the summons of damages to which I formerly alluded is now in the press with the intention of being served upon you to-morrow. I shall, however, this moment send for Mr. Swanston and shew him your letter; but I conceive that although it is very proper to put a note in any new edition which you may throw off to the purport you mention, still it will not be a whitewasher of the injury which the previous publication has already done. With regard to the action of damages, I can assure you that the notion of it did not originate with himself, but with his acquaintances who first read the publication, and pointed out the injurious tendency of it last Saturday, when I first wrote you on the subject. He felt the effects of it before this, but he did not know a reason then to which he could attribute a [9]. I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
(Signed) JOHN JOHNSON.
Mr. Thomas Ireland, Jun.