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BOSTON, Nov. 9, 1869.
MY DEAR SISTER,--Three or four letters just received from home. My
first impulse was to send Orion a check on my publisher for the money he
wants, but a sober second thought suggested that if he has not defrauded
the government out of money, why pay, simply because the government
chooses to consider him in its debt? No: Right is right. The idea don't
suit me. Let him write the Treasury the state of the case, and tell them
he has no money. If they make his sureties pay, then I will make the
sureties whole, but I won't pay a cent of an unjust claim. You talk of
disgrace. To my mind it would be just as disgraceful to allow one's self
to be bullied into paying that which is unjust.
Ma thinks it is hard that Orion's share of the land should be swept away
just as it is right on the point (as it always has been) of becoming
valuable. Let her rest easy on that point. This letter is his ample
authority to sell my share of the land immediately and appropriate the
proceeds--giving no account to me, but repaying the amount to Ma first,
or in case of her death, to you or your heirs, whenever in the future
he shall be able to do it. Now, I want no hesitation in this matter. I
renounce my ownership from this date, for this purpose, provided it is
sold just as suddenly as he can sell it.
In the next place--Mr. Langdon is old, and is trying hard to
withdraw from business and seek repose. I will not burden him with a
purchase--but I will ask him to take full possession of a coal tract of
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