N03404:110
A letter to the author of the pamphlet called An answer [sic] to the…A letter to the author of the pamphlet called An answeer [sic] to the…
A letter to the author of the pamphlet called An answer [sic] to the Hampshire narrative. : [Three lines from Proverbs]A letter to the author of the pamphlet called An answeer [sic] to the Hampshire narrative. : [Three lines from Proverbs]
Boston: : s.n., Printed in the year 1737
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
But the Misrepresentation and Abuse you pretend, that you publish the Letter to vindicate yourself from, is ours and not his, which renders the Thing much more aggravated: You own that the intercepting and opening a private Letter is a detestable Thing; but certainly the publishing such a Letter to the World, when you know it to be such a one, is more detestable: Wherein consists the Dishonesty of a Person's breaking such a Letter open, but that thereby he makes it known to one that had no Right to know it, and that the Author did not design should know it? But he that publishes it, don't only make it known to one that had no Right to know it, but to Hundreds, he exposes it to the World.
And besides, you say, Page 70, That every Man of you do solemnly declare, to all that will give you the Credit of Men of common Honesty and Truth, that a Copy of a certain Letter was brought to Boston, but not one of you knows from whom, or by whom it came: So that you knew not who took the Copy, whether he was a faithful Person or no, and how often it was transcribed, nor how ⟨p. 62⟩much it was altered and corrupted, nor how much the Author is abused in the Copy; and yet you venture to publish it as his, on purpose to render him contemptible, introducing it with such a Fleer as this, as they say it came from a Person of Distinction, so we judge it to be a Letter of Distinction: And indeed the Author is exceedingly abused in the Copy, it being false in no less than thirteen Places; and there are some very great Errors in it: If you exercised Reason, you could not but be sensible that it was not a true Copy; for tho' you often Laugh at our calling the Author a Person of Distinction, yet you must think that he knows how to write better English than that Copy, which in some Part of it is gross Nonsense.
And besides, you say, Page 70, That every Man of you do solemnly declare, to all that will give you the Credit of Men of common Honesty and Truth, that a Copy of a certain Letter was brought to Boston, but not one of you knows from whom, or by whom it came: So that you knew not who took the Copy, whether he was a faithful Person or no, and how often it was transcribed, nor how