I am entirely unconscious of any "personal wrong" ever done you by me, and had no thought of receiving "forgiveness" at your hands.
What I have said or written of your public conduct or writings has been dictated solely by a sense of public duty, and has never, I feel confident, exceeded the bounds of legitimate criticism, in view of all attendant circumstances. What has been written of you in the columns of the Globe newspaper, so far as I have observed, has been always restrained within the limits of fair criticism toward one holding a position of public trust.
As to your personal attacks on myself—those who pursue the fearless course as a politician and public journalist that I have done for a quarter of a century, cannot expect to escape abuse and misrepresentation; and assuredly your assaults have never affected my course toward you in the slightest degree. Your series of letters printed in the Leader newspaper some years ago, were not, I am told, conceived in a very Christian spirit, but I was ill at the time they were published, and have never read them. Your dragging my name into your controversy with the Messrs. Campbell—on a matter with which I had no personal concern whatever—was one of those devices unhappily too often resorted to in political squabbles to be capable of exciting more than momentary indignation.
The following letter from Dr. Ryerson to Mr. Brown, dated Toronto, April 13th, closed the correspondence:—Your note of the 24th ult., did not reach me until Saturday evening—night before last.
I wrote my note of that date with the view of forgetting, rather than reviving, the recollection of past discussions.
I never objected to the severest criticisms of my "public conduct or writings." My remarks had sole reference to your "personal attacks" and "assaults," made over your own name, and involving all that was dear to me as a man, and a father, and a Christian—"personal attacks" and "assaults" to which my letters in the Leader referred to by you, and which you had engaged to insert in the Globe, but afterwards refused, were a reply; in the course of which I convicted you not only of many misstatements, but of seven distinct forgeries—you, by additions, professing to quote from me in seven instances the very reverse of what I had written, and your having done all this to sustain "personal attacks" and "assaults" upon me.
Besides this, on at least two subsequent occasions, you charged me with what involved an imputation of dishonesty; and when I transmitted to you copies of official correspondence relating to the subject of your allegations, and refuting them, you refused to insert it in the Globe, and left your false accusations unretracted to this day.
It was to such "personal attacks" and "assaults" on your part against me, and not to any legitimate criticisms upon my "public conduct or writings," that I referred in my letter of the 24th ult.
I admit the general fairness of the Globe towards me during the last few months; but that does not alter the character of your former "personal attacks" and "assaults" upon me, and to which alone what you call my "personal attacks" and "assaults" upon you were but defensive replies and rejoinders.
I certainly have no reason to be dissatisfied with the results of such "personal attacks" and replies, notwithstanding your great advantage in having a powerful press at your disposal; and I am prepared for the future, as I have been for the past, though I wish, if possible, to live peaceably with all men.