The principles of this boat I am very cautious not to explain, as it would be easily executed by an ingenious person.

The plan I mean to pursue, is to put both the machines on board of boats* built on a large scale, and then, Sir, if you w^ould be kind enough to see them make actual performances, I should not doubt but the assemblies would allow me something handsome, which would be more advantageous to the public than to give me the exclusive right of using them."

• There were two boats connected, in the Model I exhibited at Bath in September 1787, which is the reason I speak of boats in the plural, as experimen had convinced me that a single boat would not succead on that principle.

NAVIGATION. 1077

As to the extract of liis letter to General Washington of the tenth of March 1735, it is nothing more than a declaration that he intended something j -- that even if it was steam he meant to make use of, it was a profound secret which he was then cautious not to explain. But let us take a view of this letter and 1 have no doubt but from the very wording of it, it will very clearly appear, that the utility of sleam (if that was what he meant to convey) " was with him at that time very doubtful and upon which he could have no kind of dependance: and holding up the idea of secresy so punctually, lest some artist, more ingenious than himself, should compleat a steam boat before him shews indubitably that he conceived it as an agent at a great distance from him and upon which he had no reliance or from which the public could then expect no advantage, and indeed I am confident that his ideas of a steam engine, (if any he had, which I much doubt) were very inferior to Messrs.