by imprudence and deception at a time in which it is not possible for them to detect the Slanderer and vindicate their own characters  My anxiety to defend their cause and to appease the offended has led me to measures which perhaps may involve me in serious fifficulties [sic] I may indeed have been too rash but I have a consciousness which affords me no small consolation that my motives were good  It was not my design to injure the cause of the offended but to make peace and to caution the Offended not to depend too much on the integrity of the one who in this case has been dis-