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the confidence you express in the rectitude of my public unclear, notwithstanding the attempts which have been made by, I will venture to unclear as great a scoundrel as ever disgraced a public station, to destroy me in the public opinion. He is too great a coward to meet me like a gentleman, and you will, if we live until he is out his present appointment, have proof positive, that I am not standing him. I am now prepared with all the most material evidence in the case of the Africans, and am preparing it for presentation to the President. in doing this I have been delayed greatly beyond the time I expected, by having to take much of the testimony twice & some of it three times, and the parties being scattered all over the southern & some of the western states. The illegal means & manner to which my adversary resorted in taking testimony induced the President to order