"Sir, the undersigned have made inquiry into that portion of your report in which you state that no less than six murders were committed here during the past year, and can only find that two were committed, and neither of them by citizens of this place. The conclusion, therefore, to which the undersigned are forced, is, that you were at a loss for something to say, and invented at least four murders for the purpose of contributing to the interest of your report.
"Sir, when a respectable community are engaged in trying to make an honest living, we think it hardly fair that you, as a government agent, should come among them, and, without cause or provocation, slander their character and injure their reputation. We therefore enter our solemn protest against the unfounded charges made in your report, and respectfully recommend that in future you confine yourself to your official duties.
"(Signed), J. Hodges, B. Punch, T. Thatcher, B. Fletcher, Warren Hastings, Wm. Pitt, J. Fox, E. Burke, and eleven others."
Here was a serious business. I can assure the reader that the sensations experienced in the perusal of such a document, when addressed to one's self through a public newspaper, and signed by fifteen or twenty responsible persons, are peculiar and by no means agreeable. For a moment I really began to think I was a very bad man, and that there must be something uncommonly reprehensible in my conduct.
Upon the whole, I felt that I was a little in fault, and had better apologize. There was no particular necessity for introducing Queen Victoria's front teeth and Jenny Lind's black eye to Congress; and, to confess the truth, it was really going a little beyond the usual limits of official etiquette to "ring in" a public town possessing some valuable political influence.
I therefore prepared and published in the newspapers an Apology, which it seemed to me ought to be satisfactory. The following is as close a copy of the original as I can now write out from memory:
"San Francisco, Cal., April 1st, 1858. "To Messrs. J. Hodges, B. Punch, T. Thatcher, B. Fletcher, Warren Hastings, Wm. Pitt, J. Fox, E. Burke, and eleven others, citizens, Port Townsend, W. T.:
"GENTLEMEN,--I have read with surprise and regret your letter of the 10th ult., in which you make several very serious charges against me in reference to certain statements contained in my report on the Indians of Puget's Sound. Not the least important of these charges is that I stepped aside from the line of my duty to traduce your fair name and reputation as citizens of Port Townsend. You entertain the opinion that I might have been better employed--an opinion in which I would cheerfully concur if it were not based upon erroneous premises. I have not the slightest recollection of having traduced 'your fair name and reputation,' or made any reference to you whatever in my report. When I alluded to the 'beach-combers, rowdies, and other bad characters' in Port Townsend, I had no idea that respectable gentlemen like yourselves would take it as personal. Of course, as none of you ever sold whisky to the Indians or committed murder, you do great injustice to your own reputation in supposing that the public at large would attribute these crimes to you because I mentioned them in my report.