I have not called for your letter at the Post-office, because I know that I am watched; and I do not desire to be known till the adoption of my proposition to the Reeds, of which I speak in the accompanying communication, and which I will furnish for publication in Monday's Journal. They have fallen completely into the snare.
Yours, &c., very truly,
VALLEY FORGE.
October 14, 1842.
In his explanatory communication of yesterday's date, Valley Forge speaks of many more papers "which are yet to come:" we suppose he means yet to be published. If so, we feel constrained to say now, that we cannot publish any thing more relating to the matter until he announces to us, at least, his real name.
From the Evening Journal.
R. M. Whitney, Esq: Dear Sir,—I am pained beyond measure, at the situation in which I have been so unfortunately instrumental in placing you. But for circumstances which I cannot possibly control, I would promptly communicate to you my name and residence. A pledge, rigidly exacted by my venerable relative, Col. ——, and solemnly given by me at the time he consented that I should communicate to you the letters of the late General Smith, and the other papers with which he furnished me, that I should not make either him or myself known without his consent, binds me as with links of iron. Col. —— is slowly recovering from the paralytic affection with which he was seized on the 20th of this month; and let me assure you, most sacredly and solemnly, that as soon as his health is sufficiently restored to allow a conversation of any length to be had with him, I will not fail to convince him of the propriety—of the necessity—of permitting me to call upon you, or invite you to his residence, where, preliminary to my taking the proper steps to convince the public of their authenticity, I may exhibit to you all the writings which have been so exultingly prounounced[TN] to be "audacious forgeries."
You do me but justice, when you say, that "a careful perusal of the letters of Valley Forge, confirms the belief, that he is neither an impostor nor a forger of letters." Why should I be? What motive could induce any rational being to originate a fabrication so sure to be detected? You will find, ere very long, that I have given you nothing but the truth. Only one liberty did I venture to take with any of the correspondence—that was from considerations of delicacy, which I now believe to have been fastidious, and to which, at the time, I reluctantly yielded. In Gen. Smith's letter to Col. ——, dated Oct. 2d, 1832, I substituted a blank for the name of Mrs. Ferguson," which Gen. Smith gives as that of the lady from whom was taken the letter of Governor Jonstone to Gen. Reed. This, the only alteration I ever made, you must allow, was a pardonable error.
"Truth is mighty and must prevail;" and in this case, to the joy of your friends, and the consternation of your enemies, it shall be signally exemplified. For the present, let me entreat you to rest satisfied with my assurances; assurances which will soon be most thoroughly redeemed; and that you will desist from your endeavor to discover who I am—efforts which can give you but vain trouble, which must prove fruitless; for the precautions which I have adopted for the preservation of my incognito, it is impossible to overcome.
Very truly, &c.,