"In the year 1802, Mr. Hopkins, printer, of this city, intending to publish a new edition of The Federalist, took this opportunity to apply to gen. Hamilton, and solicit him to correct and revise the numbers, and, so far succeeded, as to obtain his consent to assist in the revisal, provided a gentleman of competent literary talents would undertake to make the first verbal corrections, for the original idea was to be strictly adhered to:—He then examined the whole with his own eye, previous to its being committed to the press, and saw that it was free from literary blemishes.[1] When the whole was ready for the press, the gentleman who had thus given his aid, wrote a preface, in which he took occasion to make respectful mention of the names of the two gentlemen who were associated with Hamilton, in the essays Mr. Jay and Mr. Madison. Whether he was disposed to express a similar opinion with that expressed in Delplaine, respecting the relative merits of the writers, I do not now recollect, but I do know, that the following expressions, on that point, were dictated by Gen. Hamilton himself: 'In justice to these gentlemen, it is thought necessary to add, that, as far as has been practicable to discriminate their productions, they are not unequal in point of merit to those which are solely from the pen of general Hamilton.'
"I have now to notice what, indeed, may, with strict propriety, be called 'a misstatement of facts.' The writer of the above article, in the National Intelligencer, takes upon himself to state upon, what he calls, indubitable authority, that Mr. Madison wrote the Nos. 10, 14, 18, 19, 20, and those from 37 to 58 inclusively, besides the Nos. 62, 63, and 64; that Mr. Jay wrote Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, and Mr. Hamilton the residue.
- ↑ "This renders the edition of Hopkins, the most valuable extant."—Evening Post.
