I was entirely ignorant of the principle on which you were to gain your power, and your manner of applying it, till our return from .the Great Falls together, in October or November (but I think October) 1785, when you told me that you relied on steam for your first power, and wished me to promote your having cylinders cast at my brother's and my works ; the attempt did not succeed. I considered myself under an obligation of secrecy till in the progress of making copper cylinders in Frederick-Town some time after, when I found, that the designed purpose of the cylinder was a subject of pretty general conversation.

Being on the committee appointed to consider and report on Mr. Fitch's petition, I thought it my duty to mention what was in my memory, of your telling me that you had communicated your

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principle to General Washington, as I thought,* tho' perhaps mistakenly, at the time your model and experiment were exhibited before the General ; and with the approbation of the committee, wrote to the General on the subject ; his answer now before me, is to this effect, that "at that time, September, 1784, nothing was intimated of Steam ; that the November following, in Richmond, you spoke to him of the effect of steam, and of the conviction you were under of the usefulness of its application for the purpose of inland Navigation," but the General seems to have thought it an immatured idea, that he did not then imagine you relied on.