Monday, Sept. 19, 1842. VALLEY FORGE.
From the Evening Journal.
Mr. Whitney:—Since your publication of my last, "McDonough" has slacked his fire wonderfully. It is surprising how one's tone becomes altered after the discovery is made that the former idea of invulnerability was a great mistake. The home truths pressed upon Mr. William Bradford Reed (I believe this is the first time that the public have been made acquainted with the learned gentleman's name in full) have proved to be of unpalatable flavor and difficult digestion; and it is not, therefore to be wondered at that they should have for him no relish. I have not yet done with the revolutionary reminiscences of his grandfather; that worthy whom "King George was not rich enough to buy," although, as he himself modestly admitted, he was "not worth purchasing:"
The writer of this paragraph had an opportunity, very many years since, when Mr. Reed was a student of the Pennsylvania University, of becoming somewhat intimately acquainted with his bent of mind; and if there ever was a school-boy despised and detested by his fellows, William was that youth. "The boy's the father of the man," and those who have known him only in his ripened years, if they apply the truth of this axiom, will have no difficulty in correctly conjecturing what must have been his early youth. Even then his predominant weakness was to almost daily, and by the hour, expatiate upon the merits of his great "grandfather," and to entertain boys, smaller and younger than himself, with the revolutionary exploits—more numerous and diversified far than those with a narration of which Othello beguiled the fair Desdemona, performed by that distinguished personage: and in particular, how "the General" had repulsed the proffered bribe of the Treasury of Great Britain, and his pick and choice of the most lucrative office in the Colonies.
Down to this day, this has continued to be the habit of Mr. Reed; and to such an extent has he indulged it, that he has become the butt and laughing stock of his acquaintance.
"O, wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae manie a blunder free us,
An foolish notion!"
The extraordinary pains taken by Mr. Reed, to circulate the notion of his grandfather's more than Roman patriotism, would, of itself, be a circumstance calculated to induce suspicion of their being "something rotten in Denmark;" but, fortunately for the truth of history, the proofs of General Reed's treachery and meditated "treason," [TN](if not actual treason, are extant—and the veteran, to whom in my last I referred, will, in due time, give them to the world. The descendants of General Reed have succeeded long enough in imposing upon the American people, as a patriot and a hero of the "times that tried men's souls," a wretch, who, in the emphatic language of General Washington, spoke in his presence and hearing, "wanted but a price and an opportunity to play us false as Arnold!" who, while his fellow soldiers were stinted of food and scant of clothing, was in actual treaty with the British Commissioners, to betray the American Army, and their Commander-in-Chief, and their cause, and their Country, to Great Britain, for the consideration of ten thousand pounds sterling, a judicial office, and a tract of land!!!
By a monstrous suppression of truth, and an adroit perversion of the explanation which General Reed gave to the demands of the American Commander-in-Chief, respecting his correspondence with the British Commissioners, his descendants have managed, so far, with tolerably general success, to thrust into the ranks of the Carrolls and Hancocks, the Putnams and Warrens of the Revolution, a "traitor," who entered into the struggle as a matter of speculation; and who, from the date of his appointment, in 1774, as one of the Committee of Correspondence of Philadelphia, down to the detection of the fact, some years after, that he was engaged in a correspondence with the British Commissioners, watched with untiring vigilance, for a proper "opportunity" to betray, for a sufficient "price," the cause, and the country, to the tender mercies of George the Third and his ministry! There is scarcely a Review or Magazine, published in the country, into which, under the pretext of reviewing some publication, Mr. William B. Reed has not contrived to obtrude some panegyric of his grandfather's patriotism—fulsome, even if true, but most monstrous when considered with reference to its unworthy object.
Not content with chaunting Gen. Reed's praise as an "invisible singer," Mr. Reed has not hesitated to take the field openly, and in person, and sound the trumpet in the ears and before the eyes of the astonished lookers on. Before every literary or collegiate association which he has been called on, or finefied to have himself invited to address, the eternal burden of his song has been, "I am the grandson of the great and good patriot, General Joseph Reed, of revolutionary memory, who replied to the emissaries of Great Britain, when they offered him his own terms to further the views of England, 'I am not worth the purchase, but poor as I am, King George is not rich enough to make it.'" At New York, a few years since—afterwards, in the Musical Fund Hall, in this city—more recently at Dickinson College—quite lately at Harvard University, in short, everywhere, and on all occasions, the self same tune has lulled his audiences into a general slumber. How any one whose cheek is not formed of brass, can stand up as Mr. Reed has accustomed himself to do, and thus dole out, on all occasions, and before all assemblies, the patriotism of a grandfather for whose "treason" he should blush, I am at a loss to imagine. Even if deserved modesty ought to insinuate that the tribute would be more appropriately paid, and in better taste, by other voices.
But the strongest part of all is, that Mr. Reed, with that full knowledge which I know him to possess (and which I will satisfy him that I know him to possess) of his grandfather's traitorous designs and conduct, should, nevertheless, have succeeded in steeling himself to the habit which has made him so supremely and universally ridiculous.