Timothy Matlack, Scribe of the Declaration of Independence by Chris Coelho

Author:Chris Coelho
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2013-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

Benedict Arnold responded to Gracchus, complaining “It is ungenerous and unjust to attack my character in anonymous publications, the authors of which are equally unknown to me and to the public.”

As Arnold should have realized, Tiberius Gracchus was Timothy Matlack. Matlack’s enemies were bitterly amused he had the gall to sign articles with the name of a Roman politician who fought to distribute public land to the poor. Matlack’s opponents came up with their own sobriquet for the secretary: Tim Gaff. “Gaffs” were the spurs Timothy once attached to the legs of game fowls, while “gaffes” were the social blunders they claimed he was prone to make.

Lending credence to the second charge were Timothy’s emotional outbursts. These eruptions were the manifestation of irritability. By the spring of 1779 twelve months had passed since Matlack first complained of fatigue and stress. Even as he wielded a sharp pen as the defender of his government, the years of relentless conflict were taking their toll. An eruption at the end of March was a blunt demonstration of the mental strain he was suffering. Elizabeth Drinker reported, “Tommy Fisher and John James, who were this Morning at Timy. Matlacks on a visit to his Son, were beat by Timothy with a Cane, in his Entry and in the Street—until he broke the stick.”

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