1807.065: Justification of Personal Conduct by John James Speed.
Published: 1807
Full Title: To the public. Viewing with no less astonishment than abhorrence, the hand-bill publication of Dr. Holmes together with his subsequent conduct, I am induced to offer to the public, facts and sentiments ...
Author: Speed, John James.
Place Issued: Petersburg
Issuing Press: Uncertain
Description: 1 sheet [1 pg.]; 39 cm. x 35 cm. (broadside).
Notes
Item is Speed's response to a broadside issued by Holmes (1807.064) in September 1807; he had been involved in a dispute with one Richard Apperson, who had served on the federal grand jury in Kentucky that refused to indict Aaron Burr for treason for a reported conspiracy with the Spanish in 1805 to seize the Mississippi Territory – a charge that was unrelated to those lodged in his infamous 1807 treason trial. On Apperson's return to Virginia, his actions drew criticisms from his neighbors in Mecklenburg County, leading to a challenge to a duel from Holmes for Apperson's affronts to his father; subsequently Holmes found that Speed had circulated rumors of his cowardice in the Apperson affair, which had been settled by apologies and not combat; Holmes published a justification that directed interested parties to consult the seconds in Mecklenburg for an accurate account of the challenge's resolution. Speed took offense with that hand-bill and published this larger, detailed counterpoint. Sheet lacks colophon; clearly a Petersburg title; but with at least three presses operating in the town at this time, making an attribution to an specific printer requires more evidence, so the indeterminacy here.