I may venture to say, Sir, without fear of contradiction, that this is a new mode of judicial proceeding in a country contending for liberty and justice; a mode of which every man in or out of Congress would complain if applied to himself; and under which it is impossible that any man’s character can be safe from the attempts of malice and falsehood.
Congress will permit me to request, that they will order copies of that intelligence and information to be transmitted to me, that I may be able to do myself, though late, the justice of answering them.
[48] Journal of Congress, April 30th and May 3d, 1779.
I had the honor of receiving your letter of the 16th of July, with the Journals of Congress, in which I see with sorrow the proceedings with regard to those, who in no moment of their lives ever neglected to do the utmost in their power for the public good.[49]
For myself I trust, that time and maturer consideration will alter the opinion of those gentlemen, who appeared desirous of fixing upon me a most public mark of suspicion and censure, with some little precipitation, they will permit me to say, as it was before I had been heard. Among those gentlemen there are some, whose education and profession should, in a peculiar manner, have taught them, that it is laid down as a fundamental maxim of justice, that he who gives judgment, the one party being heard and the other not, though he should happen to be right in his decision, commits an act of injustice.
I should have expected, that not only Congress but every member of it, my accusers excepted, would have been my advocates, because your records are filled with proofs of my early and unremitting endeavors to serve the public. Congress will bear with me while I express my surprise, that the delicacy observed in wording Mr Deane’s recall was reversed in the proceedings against Mr Izard, my brother, and myself; unless it were intended to hold us up to the world as persons, who had been proved guilty of offences against their country; which, if it were, may God in his infinite mercy forgive.
I am fully persuaded, that time and riper information will show you, that as nothing could have given a deeper wound to the honor and interests of the United States, than harmony among your Commissioners in doing ill, there were use and merit in the suspicions and dissensions, that arose among them. In any event, they who consider, that suspicions and dissensions may and have existed among the best of men, will mix some moderation with the judgment they pass upon them. They who know with what long suffering and frequent forgiveness I endeavored to prevent them, will not impute the blame to me.