Bloomingdale Asylum, Nov. 17th, 1853.

My dear sir,

In reply to yours of the 12th inst., I can say what I might have said on the first day of my confinement; that neither the chancellor nor any one else at the University can have or ever could have any apprehension whatever of being molested by me in any place or in any manner whatever, provided they mind their own business and cease to give me any further provocation. The Chancellor's conduct was pre-eminently odious, and beneath the dignity of his office. His letter, which I still hold in my hands, is as ludicrous as it is false. He is certainly very much mistaken in supposing that by his tiny authority he can so easily crush a scholar and a professor of my reputation and "standing." "Proud of my connection with the University and anxious to secure my co-operation," when but a month before he solicited the "fraternal aid" of a distant brother divine in his attempt to ship me out of the city as a sick man, of a distempered mind, concerning whom he was most deeply and devoutly concerned, and (what is still more strange,) of a man whom he pronounces "unfitted for the business of instruction?" This is his own language and this is the whole discovery, the dÉnouement of the dirty transactions by which I was harassed last winter. I admit that my conduct may be regarded as too hasty. I might have defended myself in a calmer, more dignified and more effectual manner. As it is, however, I shall make no apology and I still think, that a month's imprisonment in the Tombs or a severe castigation of a tangible description last winter would have conferred a lasting moral benefit on certain persons in that institution. In making this remark, I by no means intend to throw out any menace, nor would I myself like the office of Knout-master-general either to his imperial majesty at St. Petersburgh, or to his excellency the Governor, or to the President of the United States; but I refer simply to the moral good that would undoubtedly have accrued to the souls of certain students and professors at the University during the last winter from a dose or two of the "good old English discipline." As to the infamous and unearthly noises that worried and distracted me for at least six months, the ruin of my health and the entire suspension of my studies were too grave a result to be easily overlooked or forgotten, and the ignoble and bigoted clique at the bottom of that brutal terrorism have certainly not failed to leave a lasting impression of their power on my mind. No denial or assurance to the contrary will ever invalidate the evidence of my senses. What I saw with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears at the time I complained, is as true as are the phenomena of my present experience. The guillotine alone was wanting to cap the climax of those high-handed proceedings. It was a repetition of the same narrow vandalism which in 1848 exiled me out of the city, and in 1849 made me leave America in disgust. While I therefore disclaim cherishing or ever having cherished the remotest desire to molest the peace or safety of any member of the faculty—the fear of corporal punishment betrays a bad conscience on the part of my adversaries and is a virtual admission of their guilt, or else it is a fiction invented to patch up a hopeless case;—I would at the same time assure all those concerned in this business, that I am not an advocate of nonresistance or of tame submission to such a gross injustice, and that in case of need I can wield a pen to defend my rights before an intelligent public, the opinion of which in matters of this kind, in America particularly, is after all the last and highest instance of appeal.

The case is therefore perfectly plain. I deny having ever given any just cause of apprehension to any man in the institution. The very supposition is an absurdity. They are the iniquitous aggressors throughout. They have to endeavored to crush my intellectual independence by carrying the principle of conformity to a ridiculous extent, and by enforcing a submission to which no man of honor without the loss of all his intellectual powers could submit.—I told the chancellor on the spur and in the excitement of the moment what I thought of the falsehoods contained in his epistle and of his previous conduct which, if he is a gentleman, he is bound to justify. He gravely ignored the letter of complaint I had addressed to him a month before, or rather answered it by spectral demonstrations the night after its reception. Such mummery and such terrorism, practiced on an officer of a literary institution by a fellow-officer is surely out of place and Dr. Ferris has not yet learnt (it seems) the meaning of an A. M. and of certain other rights of Academic men, (to say nothing of the courtesy customary among men of letters of every age and in all civilized countries), to introduce or suffer such singular proceedings in a respectable institution. As for myself I do not intend to be intimidated in the least, and if my life and health last, I shall find the means of defending both my honor and my position as a gentleman and a scholar. It is all idle to attempt to crush or gag a man by terror. The humbug of the spirit-rappers is no greater than the jugglery of door-and-desk-slamming, of vociferations and mystifications so successfully employed at the University during the whole of last winter. As it regards therefore my alleged insanity on these points, I must confess, that if a denial of the reality of this terrorism by which the University (and certain societies) have carried on their nefarious business of subjugation, be required of me, then I can never become rational again without adding falsehood to cowardice. It smacks too much of the outrage of '48, when I was compelled to admit the most damnable affronts as delusive impressions of my senses and when other men's infernal-pit-iniquity was alleged to be the offspring of my own tobacco-fume! This is subjectivism with a vengeance! It is too big a pill to swallow. It produces rather too great an excess of abdominal convulsions, as the Doctors would say.

If by my conduct I have incurred any censure or violated any law, or menaced the safety or the life or property of any man in or out of the institution, why in the name of reason and of common sense do not these gentlemen proceed in the regular way, to secure exemption from the fear of danger? Could they not have legally coerced me to keep the peace? or could they not (a still more rational course) have requested a committee of the council to meet for the purpose of examining and adjusting a matter of such grave importance? Could I not and can I not now expose the hollow misery of the sham, the real nature of which is as plain as the noon-day sun? The course they have adopted is surely derogatory to the moral integrity of the parties concerned, and my stay among lunatics and maniacs is an unpardonable abuse of an excellent institution. The day before my arrest, eight young gentleman volunteered to commence the study of the language which I more especially profess and I had engaged to begin with a public lecture in the Monday following. These proceedings rob me now, for this winter at least, of the only advantage, which my connection with the institution affords me, and it is manifest enough that the difficulty was "got up" for the express purpose of anticipating and of frustrating my preparations for the present semestre.

It still seems to me, that these gentlemen incriminate themselves in two ways:—1st, By desiring me to remove out of the building, they incur the suspicion of being themselves the authors or abettors of the nuisance I complain of. I would propose to have some one stay with me and to retain and pay for my study as usual. In that event I should have a witness and the detection and punishment of the offenders would exonerate all those who in case of my removal would have part of the criminal credit of molesting the private residence of a professor and a scholar. 2d, The fear of personal injury from the hands of one, who for many years past has been known to be a man of peaceable and unexceptionable behavior and who never attacked or struck any man in his life, appears to have its origin in a consciousness of guilt and to be a virtual admission of it. Do they perhaps think their conduct so outrageous, that the meekness of Moses could no longer endure it without resentment? I grant that a passionate man would be likely to take a more substantial revenge. I myself however have no inclination to degrade myself in any such way.—My confinement is on a false pretense, and if any made affidavit to my insanity, they most assuredly must have perjured themselves. Whatever I did, I have been provoked to do by what I deem a stupidity and a flagrant invasion of the rights and privileges of an academic instructor, which no language can castigate with adequate severity.

I am most respectfully and truly
your obedient servant.

D. A. & Co., New-York. G. J. A.