From George Washington to Benjamin Walker, 12 January 1797
To Benjamin Walker
Philadelphia 12th Jany 1797.
Dear Walker,
Permit me once more to give you the trouble of forwarding the enclosed letters to their respective addresses.1
If you read the Aurora of this City, or those Gazettes which are under the same influence, you cannot but have perceived with what malignant industry, and persevering falsehoods I am assailed, in order to weaken, if not to destroy, the confidence of the Public.2
Amongst other attempts to effect this purpose, spurious letters, known at the time of their first publication (I beleive in the year 1777) to be forgeries—to answer a similar purpose in the Revolution—are, or extracts from them, brought forward with the highest emblazoning of which they are susceptible, with a view to attach principles to me which every action of my life have given the lie to.3 But that is no stumbling block with the Editors of these Papers and their supporters. And now, perceiving a disinclination on my part, perhaps knowing, that I had determined not to take notice of such attacks, they are pressing this matter upon the public mind with more avidity than usual; urging, that my silence, is a proof of their genuiness.
Although I never wrote, or ever saw one of these letters until they issued from New York, in Print; yet the Author of them must have been tolerably well acquainted in, or with some person of my family, to have given the names, & some circumstances which are grouped in the mass, of erroneous details. But of all the mistakes which have been committed in this business, none is more palpable, or susceptible of detection than the manner in which it is said they were obtained, by the capture of my Mulatto Billy, with a Portmanteau. All the Army, under my immediate command, could contradict this; and I believe most of them know, that no Attendant of mine, or a particle of my baggage ever fell into the hands of the enemy during the whole course of the War.4
It would be a singular satisfaction to me to learn, who was the Author of these letters; and from what source they originated. No person in this country can, I conceive, give this information but Mr Rivington:5 If, therefore, you are upon terms of familiarity with that Gentleman, & see no impropriety in hinting this desire to him, it would oblige me. He may comply to what extent his own judgment shall dictate, and I pledge my honor that, nothing to his disadvantage, or the disadvantage of any of the Actors at that time, shall result from it. I offer the compliments of the season—and you will do me the justice to believe they are warmer than the weather6—to Mrs Walker & yourself, of whose health and happiness we shall always be glad to hear.7 I am your Affectionate
Go: Washington
ALS (letterpress copy), DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.
1. The enclosures have not been found. GW previously had sent Walker letters for forwarding (see Walker to GW, 27 Dec. 1796).
2. Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora General Advertiser (Philadelphia) repeatedly printed material highly critical of GW and his administration. One example was the publication of extracts of Thomas Paine’s letter to GW of 30 July 1796 (see GW to David Stuart, 8 Jan., and n.2).
3. For the 1777 pamphlet that printed spurious letters attributed to GW and for the 1796 republication of those forgeries, see John Carey to GW, 8 Sept. and 1 Oct. 1796; see also GW to Carey, 30 Dec. 1796. In 1795 and 1796, extracts of the forgeries resurfaced in a number of newspapers, including Bache’s Aurora General Advertiser. In 1795, Bache also sold a new edition of the 1777 pamphlet at his office (see GW to Timothy Pickering, 3 March 1797; and Aurora General Advertiser, 22 Oct. 1795).
4. In an effort to lend authenticity to the forgeries, New York bookseller James Rivington in 1778 circulated a false report about their discovery. He published a piece in letter format that claimed to be “from a friend, now serving in a loyal corps.” According to the supposed “letter,” first printed in Rivington’s New-York Gazette and reprinted in the Pennsylvania Ledger: or the Philadelphia Market-Day Advertiser for 14 March 1778, Rivington’s “friend” purportedly saw GW’s enslaved servant William (Billy) Lee among “the prisoners at Fort Lee [N.J.].” Rivington’s friend questioned Lee, who allegedly mentioned that “he had a small portmanteau of his master’s,” which contained letters to Martha Washington, John Parke Custis, and Lund Washington. The “friend” reportedly copied them out and sent them to Rivington.
5. Born in London, James Rivington (1724–1802) moved in 1760 to New York, where he was a bookseller and printer. In 1773, he began publication of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer. Rivington briefly returned to London in 1776. Appointed the king’s printer around 1777, Rivington returned to New York and transformed his paper into a Loyalist publication during the Revolutionary War, when it appeared under various headings such as Rivington’s New-York Gazette and The Royal Gazette. He printed that paper between 1777 and 1783.
6. For the recent cold weather affecting the eastern section of the United States, see GW to James Anderson, 8 Jan., and n.14; see also Anderson to GW, 11 January.
7. No reply to GW from Walker has been found.