"SIR,--The undersigned have read your official report relative to the Indians of Puget's Sound, and regret that you have deemed it necessary to step so far aside from the line of your duty as to traduce our fair name and reputation as citizens of Port Townsend. You will pardon us for expressing the opinion that you might have spent your time with more credit to yourself and benefit to the government.
"Sir, it may be that on the occasion of your visit here the Duke of York and his wives were drunk; but the undersigned are satisfied, upon a personal examination, that neither Queen Victoria nor Jenny Lind suffered the loss of two front teeth, as you state in your report; and they are not aware that Jenny Lind's eyes were ever blacked by the Duke of York, nor do they believe it, although you have thought proper to make that statement in your report.
"The undersigned do not pretend to say that there is no whisky sold in Port Townsend; but they deny, sir, that you ever saw any of them drunk, or that the citizens of Port Townsend, as a class, are at all intemperate. On the contrary, they claim to be as orderly, industrious, and law-abiding as the citizens of any other town on the Pacific coast or elsewhere.
"Sir, it is scarcely possible that you can have forgotten so soon the marked kindness and hospitality with which you were treated by the citizens of this place during your sojourn here; and now the return you make is to blacken the reputation of our thriving little town, and endeavor to destroy our future prospects. You are, of course, at liberty to choose your own line of travel, but if ever you visit Port Townsend again, we can assure you, sir, you will enjoy a very different reception. Had you confined your misstatements to the Indians, we might have excused it on the ground that it is not customary for public officers to adhere strictly to facts in their reports; but when you go entirely out of your way, and commit such an unprovoked attack upon our character, we feel bound to set ourselves right before the world.
"In charity, we can only suppose that you have been grossly deceived in your sources of information; yet, when you profess to have witnessed personally the evil effects of whisky in Port Townsend, and go so far as to pronounce it 'a benighted place,' we can not evade the conclusion that you must have had some experience in what you say you witnessed; either that, or you deliberately committed a base slander upon the citizens of this place. Although the undersigned consider themselves included in your sweeping assertion, it can not have escaped your memory, sir, that on the occasion of your visit to Port Townsend you found them engaged in their peaceful avocations as useful and respectable members of society; and they positively deny that any of them have ever sold whisky to the Indians, or committed the crime of murder.