Nor would he have prayed to be invested with the exclusive privilege, to use boats, constructed on such different principles from those he really intended to pursue. In M' Rumsey's act passed in Peimsylvania, it is stiled " The exclusive right of constructing, navigating and employing boats built and to be built on his new invented mode," ^ and this new invented mode (viz. cranks, water wheels and setting poles) is all he was entitled to under that law. Can it be supposed

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that the legislature would not have included Steam in their laws if they had been informed by M^. Rumsey that it was his grand dependence ; the essential, the vital part of his scheme as he now professes. That they had no such intimation given them, is verv evident from their encouragement to me ; and the laws since passed are. the fullest proofs of the received meaning rff M^ Rumsev's petition, viz. that they had no connection with steam. And that M^ Rumsey did not think himself misunderstood, must certainly be granted ; because he made no objection to any of my petitions, as interfering with his Laws, which, agreeable to his own declarations, were founded on principles very different from a Steam-boat That he had no claim to Steam under his laws, is evident, from his confession in page 4, line 31, where he says " I find my idea of Steam was nearly matured before Steam had ever entered his head by his confession to Governor Johnson viz. April 1785." Now can it be supposed that M"^ Rumsey had made considerable hnprovements on Steam-engines in 1784, or that he had obtained laws securing a right to the use of Steam to Boats, when at the time of his petitioning for, and the passing of those laws, he confesses his idea of Steam was not matured.