(Strictly Confidential)

Your letter in reply to mine was rec^d[received] of course you are excused from not writing a longer letter to me or in fact from not writing at all as your time is very greatly occupied of course:= 2 ere this you have doubtless read Dickeys letter in the "Times" of to day:= I will give you a little of the secret history of that letter:= one day last week upon arriving late at my office I found Dickey & Gus Herrington there having arrived in the City late early that morning:= soon after, Dickey sent the boy for John M. Douglass & the two locked themselves up together in my back office for 3 hours:= after that= Herrington & Dickey were in confab for some time & on my going in of an errand I heard D. reading H. a document which I at once recognised as a political document:= later in the afternoon Judge Drummond of Utah sent Dickey word that Ben Edwards was in town & he at once sent for Ben & they were locked up together for some time then I left Dickey at my office when I went home at night writing a revised edition of his letter

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also he came to the city & went direct to Gus Herrington at Geneva & stayed a day or two before he came here to write the letter:= Judge Drummond told me that Dickey got Gus Herrington to write to Ben Edwards to write to Dickey for his opinions ^in order to get his letter before the people^: on yesterday Gus was in town and he told me that he was at the Times office for two hours by which I suppose he was attending to the publication of the letter correcting the proof &c[etc.]:=3 when I saw John M. Douglass here I knew instinctively that the I. C. R. R^d wanted Douglas elected for some reason and an article in to days "Chicago Herald" which I send you with may explain the true object no better thing can be said against Douglas than the sentiments of that article:= if I wanted to be killed forthwith I should select the hatred of the people ag^t R. R^d & especially the I. C. R. R^d if you ^we^ can only turn the hatred of the people against^to^ the I. C. R. R^d against Douglas no argument could be better and I trust that our papers will use it:= of course they will try to turn it ag^t[against] us by saying that you are the atty[attorney] &c. but they can't make it win I think:= think of it: =Scripps furnished the data to Pine for the article & thinks

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that the Republican papers had better wait a little before using that argument but agrees with me that it is a powerful thing when the time comes for using it:=4 Scripps has written a fine article in reply to Dickeys letter which you will see in Mondays paper:=5 I hope you will recognise the necessity of caution in those Lasalle &c. districts since Dickeys pronunciamento:= I think that S. A. Douglas got J. M. Douglass to get Dickey to make this letter & that they are going to run Dickey for Congress & Douglas men for Legislature as I stated:= Had not the newspapers better expose the plot & guard the people ^Republicans^ against it?= those representative districts must be watched with eagle eyes:= for Gods sake don't let any indiscretion occur there