During the controversy both the "New York Times" and the New York "Sun" issued corrections. On 17 February 1901, the "New York Times" issued a retraction after receiving a different account of Ament's actions from Dr Judson Smith of the ABCFM, based on Ament's letter of 13 November 1900 to Smith. "The Times" reported that in Ament's own letter he indicated the compensation for the losses of the converts obtained by him had been "by appealing to the sense of justice among the villages where our people had lived." "The Times" concluded: "It seems that we have been led into doing an injustice to him...In that case we have to express our sincere regret." On 5 March 1901, Wilbur Chamberlin, the journalist who started the controversy, telegraphed to the New York "Sun" the following, which appeared in that paper under the heading: "A Clean Bill for the Missionaries.": Minister Conger will give a letter to the missionaries here stating that the collection of indemnities was not extortion, but the payment was voluntary on the part of the Chinese officials, and was moderate in amount. The seizure of the property was justified by the prospect that a severe famine was inevitable, and there was no government to look after the distressed people. The proceeds of the seizures were used entirely for these people. Also in March the New York "Sun" printed an interview with Ament that indicated that the indemnity was not thirteen times the loss, but only one and one-third of the loss. Dr. Porter, Ament's biographer, a fellow missionary in Beijing, considered this an "amende honorable". Twain apparently "liked the attention he was getting and wrote to a correspondent that he was in "hot water with the clergy and other goody-goody people, but I am enjoying it more than I have ever enjoyed hot water before." In response to an open letter from the ABCFM demanding an apology, Twain penned "To My Missionary Critics," which offered no apologies, although it ended by acknowledging that missionaries no doubt mean well. The essay, originally entitled "The Case of Rev. Dr. Ament, Missionary," was published in the "North American Review" in April 1901. According to Fitch, "To My Missionary Critics" (1901) recapitulates the charges mounted against Reverend William Ament in "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" and underscores Twain's contempt for the American-Christian missionaries' role in imperialism."