My son took your specimen to Redfield & your communn for Mr. Tyler went immediate
New Haven December 19, 1844
Dear Sir,
Yours of the 16th has given me pain. I did not suppose that you could be dissatisfied with my verdict as contained in that note after having learned that part of the review with which it is connected, and after expressing your approbation of the note and your preference that it should go in, for you will remember that I urgently desired you to be entirely frank & not keep silence as at Boston, & then find something wrong when it is too late to correct it. You will remember that I offered to suppress the note entirely, or to add, alter or modify it in any way to make it entirely satisfactory to you, adding, that as I had been the cause (although unintentionally) of the mischief by what I said at Boston, I could not think of having another blunder. Your decided expression of the wish to have the note go in as it was, without alteration, you adding also that I had done you more than justice, left me in no doubt that I had satisfied you & that this note would be regarded as my decision on that part of Dr Mantell’s words with which my view, as presented in the note, did not agree: I did therefore consider myself as speaking out & not keeping silence as you appear to understand it. It is obvious however that your feelings have been again injured by the erroneous view which Dr Mantell has presented & concerning which I told you I had written to him with a particular request that it might be put right in his second edition and this private action in the case, connected with the summary in the note, I considered as discharging my duties both as an editor & a friend of all the parties.
With the views which you entertain, I see no way but
Benjamin Silliman first admonishes his good friend Edward Hitchcock for remaining silent until too late for publication to voice his unhappiness over Silliman's review of Gideon Mantell's book in Silliman's American Journal of Science, even though Silliman had made it clear he was willing to alter the review to suit Hitchcock. Silliman assures him that no one except for possibly James Deane, holds anything against him. He offers a remedy for the situation but then adds in the postscript a better one suggested by their friend James Dwight Dana, who proposed that Hitchcock write directly to Dr. Mantell, adding, "We both think that the statement should be calm, condensed & without any imputations on Dr M, Dr D or any one, but containing the facts of the claim."