560 Appendix. 



in bringing the positive testimony of my valued friend to excul- 

 pate me from the malignant accusation. 



I am, my dear Sir, faithfully yours, 

 Chester Terrace, Oct, 14. 1831. N. A. Vigors. 



My dear Vigors, 



On considering your request that I should state to you 

 whether the papers printed in the Zoological Journal, and 

 bearing my signature, were regarded by me as private com- 

 munications when written, I suppose you are referring to the 

 charge which Mr. Swainson has brought against you, of 

 having, in an unauthorised manner, published my private and 

 confidential correspondence. On this head I conclude that 

 it will be sufficient for me here to declare, in the most ex- 

 plicit manner, that you have published no paper as mine 

 which I did not write for publication; and that if you had 

 not acted the part of a friend, and published the letters in 

 question, I should most certainly have adopted other means 

 for bringing the substance of them before the world. 

 ' My friend, Mr. Swainson, is very kind in thus taking up 

 his unsolicited cudgel in my behalf; but I really think the 

 general practice in all such cases to be much more con- 

 venient, which is, to leave the resentment of a private injury 

 to the person immediately concerned. If the poor devil be 

 so casehardened as to be incapable of perceiving the griev- 

 ance, another may have the right to advise him, but scarcely 

 to break a spear in his behalf. Sufficient for each are the 

 quarrels thereof. 



As to Mr. Swainson's assertion, that although I have ex- 

 pressed myself with a degree of ridicule and contempt of my 

 opponents perfectly allowable in a private letter, yet that 

 there has appeared too much of the said feeling for the 

 public eye, I really will not dispute it; because thus the 

 whole question becomes merely one of degree, and therefore 

 one of opinion. W^ere I, for instance, to say, that, in this 

 very paper which contains the charge against you, Mr. Swain- 

 son has not shown how you have deserved so bitter an attack 

 from him, no doubt he in like manner would dissent from 

 my opinion ; and all, therefore, I can state in my own favour, 

 is, that whereas I, like the humble worm, have merely turned 

 when trodden upon, and in short have acted entirely on the 

 defensive, Mr. Swainson has most chivalrously been warmed 

 into offensive operations by Mr. Bennett^s display of the dis- 

 honest practices of some Frenchmen. 



Ever yours, 

 Havana, Aug, 10. 1831. W. S. MacLeay. 



