<P> Among the Federalists, Alexander Hamilton (as Publius), Edward Carrington, and Noah Webster acknowledged the Federal Farmer as, in Hamilton's words, the "most plausible" Anti-Federalist . Only one Federalist, Timothy Pickering, took the time to develop a complete critical response to the Federal Farmer . Though this was not published during the course of the constitutional debates, it survives in a personal letter . Pickering described the Federal Farmer as "a wolfe in sheep's cloathing" and too focused on a misplaced fear of aristocracy . </P> <P> The authorship of the Federal Farmer letters is uncertain . Until the latter part of the 20th century, the letters were generally accepted to be the work of Richard Henry Lee . Lee had been a member of the Continental Congress and had served as that body's presiding officer . He was known to be an Anti-Federalist, and as he was at New York in 1787 while serving on Virginia's Congressional delegation, he could have arranged for the initial publication of the pamphlets . A handful of contemporary sources identified Lee with the Federal Farmer pamphlets, beginning with a letter addressed to Lee that appeared in the Connecticut Courant on December 24 . That letter was reprinted in a handful of Massachusetts papers as a response to the Federal Farmer . Aside from these instances, the Federal Farmer was nowhere identified in the papers as the product of Lee's pen . </P> <P> Surviving private correspondence is unhelpful in answering the question of authorship . Many contemporary writers admitted the author's identity was unknown to them, including Noah Webster, Timothy Pickering, and Edward Carrington, who was in New York with Lee at the time the pamphlets were composed . Lee was not the only writer accused by Federalists of producing the pamphlets--a correspondent of John Lamb accused him of diverting money from the New York impost into the production of "the foederal farmer and other false Libels ." Historian Gordon S. Wood observes that at least in Connecticut, emphasizing the association of Lee with any Anti-Federalist production would have been a sound political move for the Federalists; the Lee family was reviled in the state due to the involvement of Arthur Lee, Richard Henry's brother, in instigating the recall of Connecticut merchant Silas Deane from his position as envoy to France . </P> <P> The Boston Athenaeum in 1874 published a catalogue of its holdings that indicated Lee as the Federal Farmer; until just a few years prior, major catalogues had listed the pamphlets as anonymous, including the 1864 Library of Congress catalogue and an 1868 bibliography by Joseph Sabin . After the Athenaeum's publication, the Lee attribution appeared in a new Sabin volume in 1878, an 1888 edition of the first Federal Farmer pamphlet, and other documents . </P>

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