Note 855 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Morse had ample justification for thinking himself thoroughly ill-used in this situation. The embarrassment that he experienced over the appearance of the letter in the Aurora and the Bee was enhanced by the fact that the account of the Ebeling-Morse letter published in the American Mercury, which tallied with the Aurora-Bee letter, was due to a confidence that Morse had given to a man whom he supposed to be friendly to his cause. A certain Samuel Huntington had visited him, to whom Morse read the letter he had received from Ebeling. Trusting to his memory, Huntington afterwards sent a communication to the American Mercury, purporting to contain a true account of the epistle that Morse had read to him. Cf. Bentley Correspondence, vol. i, 40: J. Eliot’s letter to Bentley, July 26, 1802. Cf. The Mercury and New-England Palladium [successor to the Massachusetts Mercury], April 28, 1801.