The principle of this boat I am very cautious not to explain, as it would be easily executed by an ingenious person.

The plan I mean to pursue, is to put both the machines on board of boats* built on a large scale, and then, sir, if you would be kind

•There were two boats connected, in the model I exhibited in September 1784, which is the reason I speak of boats in the plural, as experiment has convinced me that a single boat would not succeed on that principle,

NAVIGATION. 1035

enough to see them make actual perfcg-mances, I should not doubt but the Assemblies would allow me something handsome, which would be more advantageous to the public than to give me the exclusive right of using them.

Fims.

Note. -- The preceding pamphlet was first published by Rumsey January ], 1788, under the Title of " A Plan wherein the power of Steam is fully shewn. By a new constructed Machine, /ar propelling Boats or Vessels, of any burthen, against the most rapid streams or rivers, tcith great velocity. Also a Machine, constructed on similar philosophical principles, by which ivatcr may he raised for Grist or Saw-Mills, watering of Meadows, &c. &c." pp. 20.

It is this Edition that Fitch alludes to in his " Preface, post. p. 1040." But it is identically a reprint of the above, with the exception of a paragraph complaining of some person in Baltimore who in June, 1787, borrowed his plan of raising water by steam, and then had a machine made on Mr. Rumsey's principle. This person "had the audacity to petition the Maryland Assembly to give him an exclusive right for the emoluments of another's invention, so surreptitiously obtained; but he received the denial he so justly merited." The " Postscript" and the Extract of General Washington's Letter of 10th March, 1785, are not in the first Edition.