PILOT JR. 28? 



sent a mare to a common farm horse could possibly be to the other. And 

 yet the attorney general of the United States (and, let me add, one of the 

 ablest lawyers and best men in the State) forgets the date of that transaction 

 by a gap of nine or ten years ! I insist, then, not only that it is no impeach- 

 ment of Mr. Pearce, not the least, to express a doubt of his date, but that his 

 recollection (if there were no counter-memories) is, per se, of very slight 

 historic weight. 



"So the testimony stands, then (counting in it, of course, my own recol- 

 lection). I must believe that after 1828 Nancy Taylor had no gray filly; that 

 before 1828 (a date I can hardly forget) she did have a gray filly ; that this 

 filly might certainly have been begotten by a horse, standing some four miles 

 off, between 1824 and 1828; that Major Funk, then and there, kept a 

 stallion, Havoc by name, a ' chestnut ' in color, and claimed and reported to 

 be by Sir Charles Sir Alfred ; and that Mr. Funk neither had nor stood any 

 large bay or other farm horse until long after these dates, when, abandoning 

 his thoroughbred mania, he did buy and stand such a horse, named, I think, 

 Pennsylvania Farmer. 



"All this, sir, may not prove that Pilot Jr.'s grandsire was Sir Charles. 

 Indeed, it does not prove it, but it surely diminishes the probabilities of the 

 contrary supposition to a very attenuated quantity. And, if the question 

 must be reduced to a single point, between that pedigree, on the one hand, 

 and the allegations of Nancy Pope's sire, being a Marge bay horse', or a 

 'common farm horse called Havoc,' or any other sort of a horse than that 

 claimed by Peter Funk, upon the other hand ; then, indeed, in my judgment, 

 it is a certainty that the former pedigree is established. 



"I have expressed my doubts as to this claim, that Pilot Jr.'s pedigree 

 was thoroughbred or 'strictly thoroughbred'. I certainly never heard any 

 such claim for , this 'Taylor family'. The first in Mr. Pope's possession 

 were 'John and Nancy Taylor'. I think Mr. Pope told me he got 

 them from Bullitt county, near Shepherdsville (not a very likely region then 

 for thoroughbreds). I believe, moreover, that he told me that John T., who 

 was one of the finest saddle-horses alive, had run awhile as a stallion, and, // 

 mav be he was the sire of Nancy T., or vice versa. They were very superior 

 and fine-looking animals. John, especially, had a very satiny coat of hair 

 (bay). They may have been thoroughbreds. But, if they were, Mr. Pope 

 did not know it, nor would have esteemed them one dollar more on that 

 account. He admired and loved, was proud of them, on their own accounts. 

 Altogether, I have no idea that they were thoroughbreds, no more do I doubt 

 that Nancy Pope was by the genuine Havoc. 



"I should be ashamed (from my standpoint) to write this long letter, the 

 second in one week, too, about a matter which I deem so unimportant in 

 itself, and, at any rate, possessing, at this time, so little interest (to myself at 

 least) if I did not believe that the controversy had gotten into such a shape 

 as by implication, at least, to involve the good name of a departed friend, 

 and the feelings, consequently, of his surviving family, whom also I greatly 

 esteem. 



