I attended the session of the legislature about three weeks after receiving this letter, and on my petition for assistance to execute my plan, they made me the following report or nearly in these words (as may appear by examining their minutes) " However desirous it is for hberal and enlightened legislators to encourage useful arts, yet the state and condition of our finances are such that there can be no advance of public money at present." From this report it is proved beyond all doubt, that the Assembly of Maryland did not conceive my plan the same as Mr. Rumsey's -- finding that I was undoubtedly the first person in America that could be termed the inventor of a steam Boat, either agreeably to custom, or equity, I thought it prudent to apply to the different states for the exclusive privileges for the emoluments of such invention, which were granted by New Jersey in March 1786 by Delaware, New-York and Pennsylvania, in the winter and spring following, and by Virginia in October 1787.

1 have from the time of my first thought pursued my scheme with unremitted application, without a suspicion of an interruption, until the circulation of Mr. Rumsey's invidious Pamphlets, the contents of which I now find it necesssary to take under consideration, not doubting but that the design and tendency of that production will be a sufficient apology for the plainness with which I shall treat it. Mr. Rumsey says in page 2, "That in the month of September, 1784