ⅭⅩⅭ. Luther Martin’s Reply to The Landholder.[1]
Baltimore, March 3, 1788.
But the Landholder wishes it to be supposed, that though my veracity should not be doubted, yet my evidence ought to be rejected, and observes, that to comprehend what credit ought to be given to it, by which I suppose he means its sufficiency if credited, it ought to be known how long I was absent from Convention, as well as the time I attended. I believe Sir, whoever will read my former publication will in a moment perceive, that I there ‘stated’ all the ‘information’ on this subject that was necessary or material, and that I left no defect for the Landholder to supply. I there mentioned that ‘I took my seat early in June, that I left Philadelphia on the fourth of September, and during that period was not absent from the convention while sitting, except only five days in the beginning of August, immediately after the Committee of Detail had reported.’ I did not state the precise day of June when I took my seat—it was the ninth, not the tenth—a very inconsiderable mistake of the Landholder. But between that day and the fourth of September he says that I was absent ten days at Baltimore, and as many at New York, and thereby insinuates that an absence of twenty days from the Convention intervened during that period, in which time Mr. Gerry might have made and failed in his motion concerning continental money. A short state of facts is all that is necessary to shew the disingenuity of the Landholder, and that it is very possible to convey a falsehood, or something very much like it, almost in the words of truth. On the twenty-fifth of July the Convention adjourned, to meet again on the sixth of August. I embraced that opportunity to come to Baltimore, and left Philadelphia on the twenty-seventh; I returned on the fourth of August, and on the sixth attended the Convention, with such members as were in town, at which time the Committee of Detail made their report, and many of the members being yet absent, we adjourned to the next day. Mr. Gerry left Philadelphia to go to New York the day before I left there to come to Baltimore; he had not returned on Tuesday, the seventh of August, when I set out for New York, from whence I returned and took my seat in Convention on Monday, the thirteenth. It is true that from the twenty-fifth of July to the thirteenth of August eighteen (not twenty) days had elapsed, but on one of those days I attended, and on twelve of them the Convention did not meet.
