have cited relate to the administration of criminal justice to the infliction of dicretionary amercements and the arbitrary punishment of offences.

It was after the passage of the law of 1811, and after the decision of the Court of Errors in March, 1812, that Mr. Fulton, oppressed by the expense of the litigations in which his adversaries had involved him, and his losses caused by the Albany boats, found himself under the necessity of selling out a portion of his right, and I and others, relying upon the high authority by which that right had been, as we conceived, established, purchased from him at par. Can it be just then for the legislature now to interpose their authority to take from us that security, and the means of that security given by the contracts of the state. on which we had so much reason confidently to rely for the protection of the property we have acquired, and without which security not one of us, or any other man, would have embarked a dollar.

You say, yes! justice requires that the legislature should again open the door of litigation. That in deference to the merits of the petitioners who had presented claims, "one of them on new and peculiarly formidable grounds”*—out of

* One of these claims which rested on “new and (as to one of them) peculiarly formidable grounds," was that of Mr. Hawkins, whose new and formidable grounds were, that he had contrived a means of propelling a boat by steam to be generated by pouring water on heated iron! This gentleman prevailed on a company in New-York to be of your opinion, that his invention was new and peculiarly formidable. But they have paid pretty dearly for their credulity. After having ex

regard to these strangers, who if they have really invented any thing new, have in virtue of their pa➡ tents a monoply of all the waters of the United States, except as to the very small portions of them which have been granted by some of the states; you say, that from these considerations, the legislature of this state ought to admit these strangers to intrude upon those who have relied

pended between forty and fifty thousand dollars to build a boat on this new and peculiarly formidable ground,” she now lays a hulk at NewYork-having never, I believe, performed but one voyage to Staten-Island. Yet a number of highly respectable characters, who were on board of her at that time, gave certificates which were at least as much in her favor as the certificates obtained by Mr. Fitch as to the performance of his boat. But I have made this note for the purpose of presenting to your notice documents in relation to the other claim, on new and formidable grounds, to which you have referred; that is, the claim founded on the invention of a steam boat capable of towing another boat!! I do not mean to discuss the merits of this new invention. There may be a fit time, hereafter, for doing this. I only wish to disclose to you a fact, which I much suspect, the new and peculiarly formidable claimant never disclosed even to his advocates, or I think you would have been more cautious how you put forward his claim with so bold an aspect.

The patentee of the tow-boat, you will recollect, in his petition to the legislature of New-York, represented that the statutes of our state were unconstitutional, and a grievous infringement of his rights as a citizen of the United States. Now, this very patentee, at the very time that he was making this representation to our legislature, and complaining of our laws as violating the constitution of the United States, was himself in possession of precisely a similar exclusive right from Massachusetts to navigate the waters of one of the rivers of that state, with his tow-boats-which exclusive grant was made in consequence of a petition from the patentee, in which he urges, with great earnestness, the propriety, necessity, justice and constitutionality of such exclusive state grants! Since the above text was in manuscript, I have obtained copies of the tow-boat patentee's petition to the legislature of Massachusetts, and of the act of that state which was thereupon passed, and which is now in force. They will be found in the appendix.— Read them, "I beseech you." In the life of Fulton, I called Governor Ogden's effort to obtain a repeal in effect, of the exclusive grant of this state, while similar laws were in force in his own state, a "bold attempt.' And though you have found great fault with this expres sion, I think you would agree, that the terms would by no means be sufficiently strong to characterise the proceedings of the tow-boat pa tentee.

on its authority and good faith, to the certain ruin of the latter, by endless and expensive law suits, and by a suspension in effect of the exclusive right, while the suits are depending. You would oblige our own citizens, who have embarked their property under the sanction of our own laws, and the judgment of our own courts, to give security to the persons that may hereafter volunteer in a contest as to the constitutionality of these statutes. And if it were possible you could be right-if the laws should be determined to be unconstitutional-our own citizens would be the victims of their reliance on the acts of our own legislature.

Why should there be all this tenderness for strangers, voluntering a controversy, in preference to those among ourselves who have only acted on the faith of our own laws and judicial decisions? -Why should not the legislature say we have thought, and our judges have thought, the encouragements we have given, constitutional-If you consider them otherwise, pursue your remedy, but you shall have no assistance from us to induce you to violate laws which have invited our grantees to place so much of their fortunes on the security we proffered.

I have asserted in the life of Fulton, "that the law passed by the committee was, in effect, an entire repeal of the exclusive grants of Messrs. Livingston and Fulton." You deny that it was so. It will require but a very few words to convince

any "undeluded, candid and impartial man," that my assertion was correct.

The first, and only section of that act which has relation to this question is as follows:

"Be it enacted by the people of the state of NewYork, represented in Senate and Assembly, That nothing contained in any of the said acts, shall be so construed as to affect the right which any person or persons may have to use the invention of the steam boat. or any improvement thereon, which have been or hereafter may be patented under the constitution and laws of the United States: Provided always, that in such use they do not interfere with any invention or improvement lawfully secured by the acts above mentioned, or by any of them."

The first clause of the section gives a right to use on the waters of this state, notwithstanding the laws passed in favor of Livingston and Fulton, the invention of the steam boat, or any improvement thereon which were then, or might be thereafter patented. Since the establishment of Fulton's first boat there have been more than fortyseven patents taken out for alleged improvements on steam boats or on boilers, or some part of their machinery, or rather there were this number some year or two ago. How many there may now be I do not know; probably not short of a hundred: among these is Mr. Dod's patent for parallel links and cranks, Mr. Curtis's rotatory motion, and Mr.

Hawkins, for creating steam by pouring water on hot iron!! Now, all these patentees, it will be admitted, might, if the law stood without the proviso, run a boat, having any part of the machinery patented (if it were only a parallel patented link) on the waters of this state notwithstanding the exclusive grants to Livingston and Fulton. It will be admitted, I presume, if there were no further provision in the law you reported, that it "would have been, in effect, an entire repeal of the exclusive grants to Livingston and Fulton."

Let us see then what operation the proviso "that in such use they do not interfere with any invention or improvement lawfully secured by the acts above mentioned. or any of them,” can have. How could this proviso operate to reserve any thing to Messrs. Livingston and Fulton? Although the act of 1798 in its recital mentions Mr. Livingston being the possessor of a mode of propelling a boat by steam, on new and advantageous principles, yet none of the acts passed in their favor do even pretend to secure any invention or improvement. There is not the least reference to invention or improvement in them. Mr. Fulton, it is true, claimed to have made inventions and improvements in steam navigation, but the acts passed in his and Chancellor Livingston's favor, do not recognise him as an inventor or improver. They give the exclusive grant merely on the ground of his having undertaken to establish steam boats that