Rumsey, the Governor says, " In October'or November 1785, you told me you relied on Steam for your first power and wished me to promote your having some castings at my brother's and ray works: the attempt did not succeed -- I considered myself under an obligation to 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.^^ -- Now the Governor's letter in my favour was dated 25th. November 17S5, and the whole machinery is sworn to have been corapleated on the 1st December following, only six days after the time of my getting this letter of recommendation -- and as the cylinder was a subject of " pretty general conversation,'' I could not have been kept in ignorance by the Governor from his " Obligation to secrecy" because it was no longer a secret

1052 EARLY STEAM

in Frederick-town. The tlun(]; \v;is impossible in its nature, that the cylinders and copper works should have been making, and a subject ot" general conversation, in Frederick-town, on 25th day of November 1785, the time I was obtaining my letter of introduction to Governor Sraallwood, in that very town : and must have heard it myself if Governor Johnson had been so disengenuous as to conceal it from me; which is absurd to suppose; for 1 made my business publicly known in that town, and therefore, if M^". Rumsey's cylinders were the subject of general conversation, I must have heard it from every quarter; therefore it clearly follows, that the conversation about casting of the cylinders, the obligation of secrecy, and the general conversation about the design of the cylinders in Frederick-town, could not have happened in the year 1785. -- If Mr.