That your Petitioner has made an exact Draught of the different Parts of his machines, which w^ith an Explanation Thereof he is ready to exhibit, provided that after the Exhibition Thereof, no one be suffered to lay claim to any Invention therein described unless he shall have before exhibited a draught or model Thereof to your honorable body -- and your petitioner therefore prays That in case his machine should appear to be a new and useful Invention, That the Honble the Legislature would be pleased to grant to him an exclusive privilege and Right of using the same for the purposes of navigation throughout the State of New- York for such term of Years as shall seem meet And your Petitioner

shall ever pray

presented -- 9 January 1789 John Stevens Jun'

PAPERS

RELATING TO

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DESCEIPTION OF THE COUNTRY BETWEEN ALBANT & NIAGARA IN 1792.

[1 Mass. Hist. Coll. I.]

I am just returned from Niagara, about 560 miles west of Boston. I went first to Albany, from thence to Schenectada, about Sixteen miles ; this has been a very considerable place of trade, but is now falling to decay : It was supported by the Indian traders ; but this business is so arrested by traders far in the. country, that very little of it reached so far down : it Stands upon the Mohawk river, about 9 miles above the Falls, called the Cohoes ; but this I take to be the Indian name for Falls : Its chief business is to receive the merchandize from Albany, and put it into batteaux, to go up the river, and forward to Albany Such produce of the back country as is sent to market. After leaving Schenectada, I travelled over a most beautiful country of eighty miles to Fort Schuyler, where I forded the Mohawk : This extent was the scene of British and Savage cruelty, during the late war, and they did not cease, while anything remained to destroy.