Although privileged by their charter to go over the whole island of New York, and into West Chester County, to seek for good water, the Company contented themselves with sinking a large well at the corner of Duane and Cross-streets, in one of the

city, and thence pumped up that which they called most thickly settled portions of the pure and wholesome water, but which was necessarily most impure. This Company, moreover, confined the supply to the letter of the contract, for at a season when pestilence was apprehended, the water, by order of the then Mayor, Edward Livingston, being used to cleanse the streets, we find this entry in the minutes : Common Council, 19th August, 1802. A resolution was passed appropriating $750, to compensate the Manhattan Company for cleaning the gutters with water from their reservoir.

In 1804, indeed, under the mayoralty of De Witt Clinton, another effort was made, and a committee was appointed to report upon the practicability of supplying the city with pure and wholesome water, and especially to confer with the Manhattan Company as to the terms upon which they would cede to the Corporation their works and privileges of supplying water ; but nothing seems to have come of it.

"From that period up to the year 1816, the whole subject was apparently lost sight of, notwithstanding that for several of the intervening years, the growth of the city was more rapid, and its prosperity, and increase in wealth, more obvious than ever before. In 1812, the causes of dissatisfaction between this country and Great Britain, which had long been gathering strength and irritation, resulted in war. At such a season all local enterprises requiring credit and capital were postponed.