“

"Should anything offer in the Indian or any other Department in which I can serve my Country, I shall Esteem it as a favour of you to mention my Name . . .”

On February 13, 1798, Jefferson again wrote to General Gibson: “ Your favor of the 2 ^d inst. is received. should our session be continued to a greater length than I expect, it would be a circumstance of great pleasure to me to see you here. but I do not think we can continue here much longer than the present month as there is really nothing to do but to secure information from our envoys at Paris. if that wear a peaceable aspect, as I hope it will, we ought not to remain here a week longer for any thing we have to do. I must therefore trouble you to give me by way of letter the information respecting Cresap & his party and the murder of Logan’s family. it seems Logan has mistaken the title of Cresap if not the person. I wish to get a minute history of the whole transaction in order to correct or confirm that which has been before given . . . ”

A deposition on Colonel Gibson was written by Thomas Merriwether at Richmond on April 4, 1798: “Col ^o. John Gibson who commanded the 6 ^th Virginia Regim ^t. in the late revolutionary war, was for several years previous to that war a trader in the Delaware nation; He has informed the writer hereof in the course of their acquaintance that he had had a wife of that nation, who with a child, were both killed by the white people about the mouth of Wheeling--the writer thinks he mentioned the white people as being under the influence of the late Col ^o. Cresap--The writer thinks Col ^o. Gibson understood the Indian language (perhaps the Delawarre) well, as he has heard him sing it and speak it fluently--Col ^o. Gibson was living a few months past, and resided at or near Pittsburg--”

The deposition is signed T. M., and is attested by Thomas Lomax, and witnessed by Mann Page.

On March 13, 1798, Governor John Henry of Maryland, in a letter to Henry Tazewell of Philadelphia (the letter now in the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress, and endorsed by Jefferson with the names of the writer and the recipient) wrote: “I beg you to excuse me the inattention which I have hitherto shown to your several favors.--The last of the 7 July I did not receive till a few days ago, owing to my absence on the Eastern Shore for five months past: The former of the 2 Jany. inclosing one from M ^r. Jefferson of the 31 Dec ^r came safe to hand.

"I regret as sincerely as you possibly can do, the spirit which now prevails in the United States. In what it will terminate I am as unwilling as I am unable to conjecture.

"That the life of M ^r. Jefferson has been carefully reviewed by his Enemies & all the incidents of it, which the malignity of their malice could permit have been used to his prejudice, I well know. For one of my years I have mingled a good deal with public & private men, and have often seen with sorrow the lengths to which ambition & interest will sometimes carry them. But I really did not know, nor could I have been made to believe, had I not been an eye witness, that the Spirit of party & misrepresentation in our Country could have created such a deformity of opinions passions & resentments as I now perceive they have done.

"I came to the Government of Maryland without solicitation unexpectedly & indeed against my own judgment; but yielding to the wishes of others I accepted the appointment after an unanimous vote--I mention the latter circumstance for a reason which will hereafter appear.

"I had not entered many days on the duties of my office, when an incident occured which almost induced me to ask myself whether I was in the capitol of my own state, for I really was as much at a loss for the state of the public mind as if I had resided the preceding part of my life in Turkey.

"The letter of M ^r. Martin addressed to M ^r. Jefferson became the subject of conversation in which I took a part & expressed the Sentiments which I entertained of his public & private vertue, and at the same time lamented the disgraceful calumnies which had been ”