Nuts for Future Historians to Crack

by Unknown

I will close my budget of "documents" as "McDonough" would call them, for the present. When I open it again, the information to be drawn forth will be even more definite than that just given, and possibly, even still less palatable to Mr. Reed. He will pardon me for troubling him with two questions: Among the papers left by your grandfather, did you ever come across a copy of a very remarkable correspondence had between that person and General Anthony Wayne in 1781? If yea, why have you withheld it from publication? Although you can answer this last question, I cannot; but I will tell you, Mr. Reed, what I can do: I can lay my hands upon a copy of the same correspondence, and I propose to entertain the readers of the Journal with a few selections, upon some not very distant occasion.

In Mr. Reed's selection of a period of time to be illustrated by the labors of "McDonough," it appears to me he has been unfortunate. If he had gone further back, he might have recounted some of the real exploits of his grandfather, and spared me the labor which his deficiencies have compelled me to undertake. If he had come a little further down, he might have dilated upon the performances of his father, a Recorder of the city of Philadelphia, and Treasurer and Secretary of the University of Pennsylvania. That labor, also, I fear, will devolve upon me.

VALLEY FORGE.

Monday, Sept. 25, 1842.

From the Evening Journal.

Mr. Whitney—The communication of "McDonough" (alias U. S. Bank Reed,) in this Morning's Court Chronicle, manifests that there is no small degree of fluttering among the wounded pigeons of the "Holy Alliance." The assumption of "McDonough" that you and "Valley Forge" are one and the same person, is a more novel than logical mode of disproving the truth of my allegations. But let Mr. Reed rest easy upon that score. Who I am, is very little to the purpose; what I assert is more germain to the matter—and let this lacquay of Nicholas Biddle deny that if he dare, or disprove it if he can. If my charges are true, the identity of their author with the editor of the Evening Journal could not detract from their truth; if false, a more obvious as well as conclusive mode of establishing their falsity presents itself.

But the truth is, that no arrow which has been shot into the camp of the "Holy Alliance" rankles more deeply, or has worked worse execution, than the exposure of the authorship of "McDonough." Not that Mr. Reed is by any means, either intellectually or extrinsically, the most formidable member of the combination; but now it is known that he is the author of those attacks upon the character of a good citizen, of a man against whom for years the minions of the Bank have been directing their warfare without the ability to discover a crevice in his coat of mail, the arm of the puny assailant falls paralyzed to his side, and his intended victim laughs at him in a tone of scorn, in which the whole community participates.

William B. Reed to prate of patriotism! William B. Reed to declaim upon honor and patriotism! For the chimney-sweep to prate of cleanliness would not be more anomalous. With what grace does the defence of the United States Bank come from this "McDonough" of the Chronicle, when we know him to be the veriest lick-spittle that Nicholas Biddle, in his day of pride and power, ever retained in his service? As the friend of Nicholas Biddle, as his purchased tool and agent, rather, Mr. Reed has never, for an instant, hesitated to sacrifice to the promotion of the interests of the Bank, every public trust which for the time being was confided to his keeping. Why is it that Mr. Reed has never yet explained away or answered the very extraordinary and specific disclosures of bribery which a correspondent of the Ledger made against him in the summer of 1841? Disclosures so astonishing that the eyes of the public, although long accustomed to look upon the doings of the man with distrust, dilated with astonishment. He was accused by the correspondent of the Ledger with having as a member of the House of Representatives, accepted bribes from the Bank of the United States; the several amounts were specified; documents were even refered[TN] to; and yet Mr. Reed, instead of maintaining his good ground and confronting his accuser, flies the city, absents himself for some time upon the plea of a previously arranged excursion of pleasure; and when, after his return, driven at length to a show of explanation, he parades in print an evasion of charges, so paltry that its sophistry would degrade the merest pettifoger in Mr. Biddle's Court of Criminal Sessions.

But since Mr. William B. Reed, alias Mr. U. S. B. McDonough, is so pure a patriot, and has such a holy horror of "treason" and "traitors," I will give him a few facts upon which to reflect, and with which he may enrich and illustrate his future lucubrations.