Rumsey was in 1784, projecting a boat to work by steam, with a view of carrying it into actual execution, why did he not apply for the use of steam in his laws ? the reason is plain -- General Washington gives it for him, " it was an immatured idea and on which he thought he did not relyP I must therefore contend that these depositions, lose their weight, and the whole of his conduct proves to a demonstration, that he could not have been engaged in making steam engines at the time mentioned by those witnesses, with a view of applying them to his boat. In page 20, N". 18, he inserts a paragraph of a letter said

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to have been written by a Mr. Daniel Buckley, near Philadelphia, by which he fixes the time of bis applying himself to the "perfecting his steam engine with much ardour." In part of said inserted extract, speaking of me he stiles me, " A M. Fitch of Philadelphia ;" now this letter, if the facts it recites are true, must have been written after the 17th. of April 1786, and not in 1785, as insinuated by M^" Rumsey, for I was not an inhabitant of Philadelphia until after that period ; nor did I ever hear that M'' Rumsey was employed in making a steam boat until long after that time ; consequently I could not have used any expressions about it until April 1786. This is a very important part of the prevarication, and carrying the air of great plausibility, I must beg my Reader's close attention to it, as I shall prove it to be false. Page 3, he says, "I wrote to General Washington the 10th. March 1785, that I intended applying both powers (meaning steam as one) to build a boat after the model of one he saw, at Bath, &c. and as I could gain truth only by successive experiments, mcret^aS/e delays were produced, &c.