Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/48

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xlvi
Introduction.

a new edition of The Fœderalist, among which was the following: "Having been furnished with the names of the writers of the different numbers from a source which cannot be questioned, he will attach the author's name to each number, that the reader may know, without difficulty, by whom it was written."

Following so closely the article which had appeared in the Washington City Gazette on the eighth of December preceding, these "Proposals" appear to have aroused Mr. Coleman; and, having no longer any fear of "Corrector," and seeing before him only an industrious printer whose pen was armed with no terrors, that veteran partisan writer hastened to assail Mr. Gideon and his "Proposals" in the columns of The Evening Post, and to threaten him with "the penalty of having his edition denounced" in that paper, if the statement concerning the authorship which had appeared, a few days before, in the Washington City Gazette should be "adopted" in the proposed new edition.

As Mr. Coleman added considerable matter of general interest to the indiscreet threat to which reference has been made, the entire article will be found worthy of a perusal; and, consequently, it is transferred in extenso to these pages. The following is an exact copy:—

[From The New York Evening Post, No. 4875, New York, Tuesday, January 27, 1818.]

"The Federalist.—It is announced in the newspapers at Washington, that a new edition of this work is in press, at that place, and will be delivered in November next, with the names of the respective numbers prefixed to each, as obtained 'from a source which cannot be questioned.'—The Washington City Gazette, also, in December last, observing that 'as a contrariety of opinions, on the subject of the different writers of this work existed, he, for the satisfaction of the public, and