I had long before declared my intentions through Congress, and thereby invested myself with the indisputable title to my invention throughout the United States. Maryland and Virginia had virtually pledged the honor of their states to secure me in this right. -- Virginia has since suDDorted that honor by cheerfully passing a law for that purpose, and Maryland I doubt not, as also other of the United States, will pay equal regard to justice and policy.

N R. As the application of steam to vessels will undoubtedly claim the early attention of the world, as the least expensive and safest mode of navigation, -- I doubt not but the impartial public will yet, with pleasure, secure me in those rights, for which secrurity, had I applied on the first exhibition of my scheme, would have been granted without murmur or delay ; but as a confidence

1078 EARi^Y STEAM

in ihe honor of my country, and a want of finance, were then the preventatives, the delay certainly will not now operate against me; as the utility of the invention more clearly appears, and thereby the attention of my country more reasonably claimed.

The following certificates were omitted in their proper places. N^. 1

I do certify that I was returning with John Fitch from Neshamany meeting some time in April, 1785, as near as I can recollect the time, when a gentleman and his wife passed by us in a riding chair ; he immediately grew inattentive to what I said. Some time after he informed me that at that instant the first idea of a sleam-boat struck his mind. JAMES OGILBEE