Thomas Mann Randolph to Peter Carr
| Dec. 24. 1802 |
As I could not be with you to read to you what I had written I leave it for you. My conversation with gentlemen here has made me think lighter of those infamous stories than I did: therefore I have not sent it to the Gazette as I intended: it being necessary to put my name to a paragraph such as it would be. I had no thought of any thing but demanding a certificate from Calender that I was not one he could prove believed the story untill I spoke to you the day Mr Hay beat him; which occurrence prevented for obvious reasons my going to him
When journalist James T. Callendar (1758–1803) publicly accused Richmond attorney George Hay of deliberate unprofessional behavior, Hay beat him with his walking stick, which was the socially acceptable response for a gentleman to make to the insult of someone not his social equal (DAB; ANB; Michael Durey, “With the Hammer of Truth”: James Thomson Callendar and America’s Early National Heroes [1990], 164–5).
