"fact" = "supposition", "hypothesis", from 1831

[George Thompson]

JL has posted several recent instances of "fact" used with reference to
suppositions, notions, rumors, &c., coming, as I recall, chiefly from a
well-known purveyor of political bias.

Here is a "fact" used in a similar sense, though not with the intent of
legitimizing falsehood.


>      *To the Editors of the Commercial Advertiser*.
>
>      Such is my situation, that I often ascertain that crimes have been
> committed, not before made public -- and believing that persons meeting with
> mysterious losses, suspect some one -- and often the crime thus committed is
> fixed in the mind of the suffer upon an innocent person -- believing, as I
> did, this fact, I took the liberty of writing to a gentleman in
> Philadelphia, a few weeks since, who had lost several hundred dollars --
> informing him who had got his money, and how they obtained it -- stating, at
> the same time, that there was no probability of his obtaining his property
> again.  However, the gentleman came on, and was fully satisfied as to the
> correctness of my statement, seemed very thankful for the information, for
> he had suspected and accused one of his neighbors, and had forbidden him his
> premises.  Now that he was satisfied that he had wrongfully accused him,
> he would return and ask his neighbor's pardon. ***
>
>      N-Y Commercial Advertiser, November 23, 1831, p. 2, col. 4
>

GAT
--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ.
Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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