"I hereby certify, that a leading federalist, being as I understood, one of the federal convention from the town of Northumberland, who met at the Court-House on the 14th of April last, to make the federal nomination for members of Assembly, &c.—informed me on his return home from that convention, that James Merril, Esq. urged some of that convention to place Samuel Young Esq. on their ticket, and offered one hundred dollars if they would go halves with Young's friends in the ticket they should run at the then next election, for the purpose of defraying the expences of the election; and that the said Merrill took from his pocket the hundred, dollars, and laid it on the table for that purpose, as I understood it.—HENRY STAFFORD. Saratoga Springs, March 1816."
"I, Joseph Ogden, of Malta in the county of Saratoga, do hereby certify; that I was at the inn of James Jones in Halfmoon, a few days after the election of 1815, and Aaron Morehouse of Ballston, and a leading federalist of Halfmoon were there, conversing together on the late election. Mr. Morehouse said he voted for Mr. Hamilton, the federal candidate, to get a federalist in his town to vote for Mr. Young; and the federal replied, that be voted for Mr. Young, and that it was the understanding among some of the federalists and some of the republicans in Halfmoon, that the federals should vote for Mr. Young, and that the republicans should vote for Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Isaac Kellogg, jun. was present at the same time.—JOSEPH OGDEN."
"I, Isaac Kellogg, Jun. of Malta in the county of Saratoga, do certify, that I was present and heard a part of the conversation above stated by Joseph Ogden, and remember hearing Mr. Morehouse state, that he voted for Mr. Hamilton, and the abovementioned federalist say that he voted for Mr. Young. I also heard another federalist of Halfmoon then present, say that he voted for Mr. Young also; and I distinctly understood from them, that there had been an understanding between the federalists and Mr. Young's friends, to support Mr. Young and Mr. Hamilton as members of Assembly.—ISAAC KELLOGG, jun."
It is also a fact, that Young's supporters did in two or three of the towns hide and suppress the tickets printed by direction of the county convention, for Mr. Cowen and the other candidates.
These certificates and these facts serve then to explain how Mr. Young came by a greater number of votes than Mr. Cowen;—and no doubt is left on this subject when on calculating from the returns, you perceive that the votes for Mr. Young and Mr. Cowen in the aggregate exceed by a great number the whole votes for any other candidate on either side, and that one of the federal candidates received a less number of votes than the others. This would of itself shew as far as the subject is susceptible of proof, a bargain between some of Mr. Young's friends and some of the federalists. Shortly after this bargain which Mr. Roe speaks of, the McBain Meeting[4] was called, where every exertion tended to produce a political abortion.
I cordially join with "the book" in censuring the editor of the Journal for resembling this meeting to a political funeral;—for I do not believe that the lifeless embryo which it bro't forth, ever raised the tho't of a funeral in its poor distracted father. And while I could not have the face to vindicate him from falsehood in not making a better distinction, I should feel the less inclined to deny his being a savage, while I behold him wantoning with the wounded feelings of a forlorn, hopeless and unhappy parent. If his personification had embraced the meeting merely, he ought to have known that even the dead are not always unavenged, and that its ghost at least, would have arisen from the tomb to flutter round and haunt the unhappy county of Saratoga on the eve of the next nomination, in the form of a book; that thing which like the poet is justly admired for giving
"To airy nothing,
A local habitation and a name."
We could hardly say of that book, however, as Hamlet said of his
Father's ghost that
"He would take his word for a thousand pounds"—
Or why do we hear it insisted that the fault of keeping alive discord and division in the county, is imputable to a few individuals named and pointed out by it?—Aside from the base and unprincipled attempts of Roe, Thompson and some of their co-adjutors, to prostrate the only republican press in the county, by a system of slander and detraction; The public cannot have forgotten that Mr Young's famous colleagues were mildly and publicly invited to an amicable explanation, which they refused and rendered the publication of affidavits necessary in justification. The only reply which was received, was a still more general, malignant and furious attack upon the press, not only from the columns of the Schenectady Cabinet, but the foul lingo of Roe, Thompson & co. with bitter complaints whenever that press either ridiculed their folly and impertinence, or defended itself against their insidious and secret attempts to effect its destruction.