authors would be procured 'from a source which cannot be questioned.'
"In pursuance of my original intention, I wrote to Mr. Madison, the late President of the United States, and who is well known to have been one of the writers of The Federalist; and he has been so kind as to lend me his copy of it, with the name of the author of each number prefixed in his own hand writing; and with various corrections of the text as made by himself in those numbers which came from his pen. I hope, therefore, that I may escape the penalty of Mr. Coleman's denunciation, and that he will be candid enough to allow that Mr. Madison is quite as good authority in relation to the authorship in question as Gen. Hamilton, and that in appealing to the living memory of the former I inflict no injury on the memory of the dead.
"In addition to The Federalist, the volume, which a liberal patronage justifies me in immediately publishing, will contain the old act of confederation, the present constitution of the United States, the letters of Pacificus, by Gen. Hamilton, on President Washington's proclamation of neutrality, and the letters of Helvidius, written (by Mr. Madison) in reply to Pacificus. This explanation, I trust, will be satisfactory to the public, and fix their confidence in the accuracy of the edition which I offer them.
"February 2, 1818."
Appended to this letter, in the columns of the Gazette, is the following editorial article:—
"Mr. Gideon has been so polite as to allow us to examine Mr. Madison's copy of The Federalist. It is
