Absence from this place, on official business, prevented me, until the 16th instant, from receiving your polite invitation to join the Common Council of New York, in celebrating the introduction of the Croton water into your great city. The object of this note is to assure you, gentlemen though at a late period that I to express to you and the Common Council my gratefully appreciate your invitation, and regrets, that I could not have participated in the felicitations of an event that will mark an epoch, glorious in the history of New York. With great consideration, Your obedient servant, NATHANIEL JONES. CLARKSON CROLIUS, Esq.,1 EDWARD D. WEST, Esq., V Committee, $c. WM. DODGE, Esq.,

The replies of the foreign Consuls follow :

From the British Consul. Her Britannic Majesty's Consulate, > 3d Oct., 1842. \ GENTLEMEN :

I have the honor to acknowledge, and with feelings of no ordinary kind, accept the invitation of the Common Council, to join with them on the 14th instant, in celebrating the introduction of the Croton water into the city a work, which stands among the greatest enterprises of any nation on earth, governed by, and voluntarily paid for, by the people. Tyrants have left monuments which call forth admiration, but no work of a free people, for magnitude and utility, equals this great enterprise. That such an event

CROTON AdUEDUCT. 335

should call forth an expression of admiration, and that the Common Council should afford an opportunity for so doing, will ever redound to the honor of the city. Most happy shall I be, to assemble and participate in the general joyful event. I have the honor to remain, gentlemen,