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James T. Callender, a Scottish-born journalist, was the first to publish the
allegation that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings's children. This
article, a follow-up to his original report in March of 1802, originally
appeared in the Richmond Recorder, 20 October 1802.
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We are surprised at the petulance of some eastern editors in still affecting to
doubt the truth of Sally's story. In this state, at least as far as we can
learn, every body believes it. On the second day after the first publication,
when the demos were denying the whole, a gentleman came into the district
court, and offered to bet a suit of cloaths, or any sum of money, with any man
present, that the charge was correct. He specified a small exception, which we
have since noticed. Sally did not go to France in the same ship with our French
ambassador. She went afterwards; and the gentleman said something about the
blade wench and the captain, which we do not think it necessary to repeat.
Nobody would venture to take up this gentleman. He was known to be capable of
paying a debt; and to have the best access to family information. If we had
been mad enough to publish a tale of such enormous, of such inexpressible
ignominy, without a solid foundation, the Recorder, and its editors must have
been ruined. All decent men would have struck out their names. We have lost but
five or six in Richmond. One of these is a young man, whose own father-in-law
hath since actually subscribed. Some of those who gave up their papers have
been since harassing their acquaintances to lend them the Recorder. "Why did
you not keep the paper, when you had it?"" said a gentleman to one of those
borrowers. Twelve days after the publication of Sally's affair, Mr. Ralph
Wormely, a gentleman whose wealth is as great as his probity, sits down, writes
and subscribes a defence of the Recorder. He clanks us, in particular, for
telling so much truth of political characters. Do you conceive, that a person
of Mr. Wormely's standing would hazard the strong encomiums which he has
bestowed, unless after the most serious premeditation? Since the publication of
Sally, we have had at least an hundred and fifty new subscribers. Many of them
are among the: most respectable citizens of Virginia. Strange! If all these
people subscribe with the previous certainty that the editors of this paper
could have propagated a base calumny Mr. Coleman of New York, and our corps of
subscribers in that city, our friends in Philadelphia, about fifty subscribers
in Baltimore, and sixty in New Jersy; may all rest assured that, upon Sally's
business, as upon every other quarter, the reputation of our veracity is
invulnerable.
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Source Note: Transcription by Joshua D. Rothman
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