M'" Rumsey has insinuated that I got my first thought from Captain Bedinger in Kentucky, who went there in ]784 -- nay he goes so far in one place^ as to say, he "Was told so" and in another that " Circumstances leave little room to doubt it." I have already declared that I have not been in Kentcky since the year 1781 : thus falls to the ground this part of his " Plagiarism" allegations -- But I will suggest to him, that it is much more probable, that all his determinations of beginning his Steam-engine, might have come to him in a much straighter line, than from Kentucky to me. Captain Bedmger is so uncertain about the matter of his ever having mentioned steam in Kentucky, that he only says, coldly, the he " believes''' he also mentioned " that it worked by steam?' I will remind Mr. Rumsey, that I not only believe that I presented my plan to Congress, before the time he pretends to have spoken to Governor Johjison about getting cylinders for him, and before \i\^

1064 EARLY STEAM

( opper works were bespoke, but the files of Congress will 'provi •ihat in August. 1785, I laid my plan before them ; and nobody will b appose it was a very indirect road from Congress to each of the United States. A very few days after my plan was laid before them, M^" Rurasey might have been furnished with a copy of it j and if any member of Congress should know of such a transaction (certainly very innocent in itself) he will confer a great obligation on me by communicating it.-But in Philadelphia it waspubHc before it went to Congress, and long before M^" Rumsey's orders went to Frederick-Town or Baltimore. I have a fair right to suppose all these things, and M.^ Rumsey's giving me no opposition in my iipplication for exclusive laws, and even permitting his law to expire in Pennsylvania, without trying to derive any benefit from it, amount to positive proof that he had no serious thoughts about applying steam until it was too late. -- I promise him I shall not be so dilatory in exhibiting my boats in Virginia conformably to my law. [ trust to the goodness of my cause and the honor and generosity of my country, -- and that I not only have a substantial right by ^ exclusive laws, but by justice and equity.