N^o 2

Forks MacKenzie River

March 30^th 1809

Roderick MacKenzie Esq^r

Dear Sir,

It was with the utmost concern I observed that part of your very friendly favour dated, Fort Williams 8^th July 1808 – which Stated your suspicions respecting the authenticity of that, I had the pleasure of communicating to you in a former letter concerning the Customs of the inhabitants of this part of MacKenzie's River[.] I therefore request leave to vindicate myself from having hazarded any thing of which I had not been previously assured to be a matter of fact[.] You will please Sir to recollect that whatever I have said on the Subject of this Country and its natives was not addressed to a public at large who might (from their own ignorance of such a Place & such existing beings) have been misled into a Sordid belief that every thing thus related was literally true[.] But directed to Roderick MacKenzie Esq^r – whose extensive correspondance throughout the whole Country & personal Knowledge of the Same, would not admit of a false representation of the Customs & manners of any particular Tribe of its inhabitants, without undergoing most critical inquiry[.] Wherein any thing of the inventive

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