"declare, that in their opinion, the suggestions con"tained in the act of the 27th March, 1798, repeal"ing the act, granting the exclusive privilege to use "Steam-Boats, within this State, to John Fitch, were "not true in fact,-the said Robert R. Livingston, not "being the possessor of a mode of applying a Steam En"gine to propel a boat on new AND advantageous princi"ples; AND, the said John Fitch having made a success"ful attempt for executing his plan, and having actually "obtained a Patent therefor."

Although nothing could be plainer, than that the Committee here meant distinctly and severally to negate both these separate suggestions of Mr. Livingston, yet in your " Life of Fulton,” you represent them to have founded their denial of the one, upon a single corroborative circumstance, which they had alleged in disproof of the other. You make them say, "that it is untrue, that Mr. Livingston was then, "as those acts, recite he had represented, in the "possession of a mode of applying the Steam En"gine to boats on new and advantageous principles; "because Fitch had previously obtained a Patent.”*

With reference to the passage, which in professing to quote, you had thus mutilated, I accused you of having perverted my obvious meaning, and now, so far from denying the charge, you pretend to misapprehend it. You affect to consider it limited to your suppression of those words which excluded the imputation of intentional untruth in Mr. Livingston; and you repeat and persevere in the original misrepresentation, except as to this particular suppression, and that, you attempt to justify.

* Life of Fulton, p. 242, 243.

You pretend, in the first place, that the words "in “fact," have no effect whatever in qualifying the meaning of the sentence of which they form a part; * i. e. there is no material difference between attributing to your opponent in an argument, a mistake in point of fact, and imputing to him the wilful assertion of a falsehood;-a distinction, Sir, which I must be permitted to say, that you, of all others, should have been the last to confound.

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Next you maintain, "that the expression in the "sense given to it, ought not to have had a place in "the Report at all;" because, you allege, 66% the un"truth of representations sufficient to annul a Patent or "affect a grant from the State, is not merely a technical "untruth, but one that was deceptive, and fraudulent, and "injurious to the Public." And is this really, Sir, your deliberate opinion? Do you, as a Lawyer, after "five and twenty years of the most unremitted application to your profession," seriously maintain, that where a person in perfect good faith obtains a Patent for an invention, which he believes to be original, but afterwards appears to have been known for a century, he could enforce or defend his rights as a Patentee, even though he might be enabled to demonstrate his entire ignorance of the previous discovery, and vindicate his claim to the essential merit of an inventor? Or, where a grant of Land, for instance, were procured from the Legislature, upon suggestions confided in by all parties, that the tract thus to be ceded, had been excepted in all former alienations of the adjacent territory; and, that the person soliciting the grant, had for the pub

* Vide Colden's Vind. p. 48. + Colden's Vind. p. 49.

lic accommodation as well as for his private benefit, incurred great expenses in improvements, from which he had as yet derived no emolument, and which, of course, would be totally lost, unless he could obtain the fee simple of the soil. Suppose, Sir, it should afterwards be shewn, that the Land thus granted, had been previously disposed of, or reserved by the State for a particular purpose ;-in other words, suppose the suggestions upon which the grant in question was procured, "not true in fact," would you in that case contend, that those suggestions, though not "fraudulently" made, had not been" deceptive" in their effect, and " injurious to the Public ?" And, that the grant could not consistently, with a due observance of the public faith be rescinded, if these facts were found in some due course of Law?" ~ 'If you were not so "much embarrassed by necessary "attention to other duties,"* as to deprive you of time and opportunity for reflection,-if your interests were not involved in the decision of these questions, or your passions inflamed by their agitation,-I am convinced, that even you, Sir, would never hazard the absurdity of answering them in the negative; and yet the case I have last supposed, is strictly analogous in all its material circumstances, to that which we are considering.

Professing, afterwards, to proceed to the consideration of that part of the Report of the Committee, “in "the sense in which they intended it should be under"stood," you are" led," as you express it, "into a "full discussion of the objection to the exclusive right, that the first act," (meaning the act of 1798)

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* Colden's Vind. p. 14.

"was passed on untrue suggestions;" but you imme. diately find it necessary to misrepresent the grounds and reasons of that objection, more grossly than be, fore. You now make the Committee say, that "the "suggestions were not true in fact; because though "the Chancellor might have been the possessor of "a mode of applying a steam engine to propel a "boat; yet his representation was false in fact, in"asmuch as his mode could not have been new and advantageous, John Fitch having made a success"ful attempt for executing his plan of a Steam-boat, "and having actually obtained a Patent therefor."*

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This is really admirable !—I cannot certainly, deny that the reasoning here imputed to the Committee is abundantly absurd, and the conclusion which they are stated to have drawn, a non sequitur, glaring and almost ridiculous. To shew this reasoning to be weak and inconclusive, I beg leave to offer an additional illustration, which as it aids and completes. your argument, your gratitude will doubtless adopt, and insert, with a suitable acknowledgment, in the next edition of your pamphlet. Suppose some enemy, jealous of your reputation and success, should make the rash assertion, that you did not gain the lucrative and important station which you now "possess" by "a new and advantageous" course of conduct; because the same office was bestowed as the reward of “ adhesion," upon the former incumbent. How silly would such a process of reasoning appear? How easy would it be to vindicate your originality by the most triumphant arguments? As Mr. Fitch and the Chancellor had a common object

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* Colden's Vindication, p. 49.

in view, the navigation of a boat without the aid of wind or oars, so it may be said, that the same end, the attainment of office, was meant to be accomplished both by your predecessor and yourself. As steam was the power which Mr. Livingston, as well as Mr. Fitch, proposed to employ, it may be admitted that a common principle directed the conduct of both the official aspirants-a prudent compliance with the opinions and wishes of those who had the office to bestow.

But can any be so stupid as to think that this general resemblance ought to detract from the Chancellor's originality-or your's. Can any be so blind as not to see, that a difference, allowing the widest scope for the exercise of invention, might exist between the modes of applying the common power of acting upon the common principle? In what the difference actually consists, on which Mr. Livingston founded his superior claims, it may be difficult to determine: but, fortunately, Sir, in your case, (and it this which renders my illustration so perfect) no such embarrassment is found. That you have not barely excelled the accomplished politician who preceded you, but that you have attained your object with a skill and dexterity infinitely superior, will be admitted by all whom either an attention to the course of our State politics, or a philosophic curiosity, may have led to watch and compare the operations of two such distinguished artists.

Just observe, for the subject interests and warms me-observe the points of difference. One makes an open and public breach with his party, in the first instance; he abandons his friends, when they are still numerous, powerful, and sanguine in