would go at a certain velocity, without considering whether the effect was to be produced by his own invention or improvement or that of any other person. What effect then could the proviso have had to give Messrs. Livingston and Fulton any protection whatever. Examine again the laws, and you will find that my representation is not " founded in a perversion of their language." Condescend now to read the passage you have quoted from the life of Fulton, with "

dor and justice," and you will perceive that the omission of the word 'improvement' after the word inventions, was casual; and that the argument by which I prove that the bill reported by the committee was in effect a repeal of his exclusive grant, rests in no respect on the suppression of this unimportant word. If you had given to the matter of your accusation, as much attention as to its style, "you might have spared your own feelings of propriety the violence which they must necessarily have suffered, when you thought it incumbent on you to assert" positions so unfounded in language so unseemly. But to return.

Let us suppose that your act had become a law, that Governor Ogden immediately thereafter, had put a boat, with Dod's patented cranks and links, in operation on the Hudson, and that you had been applied to as a lawyer to vindicate the exclusive right of Livingston and Fulton.--What process would you have advised, or what suit

would you have instituted? How would you have framed your declaration? or when you were called upon to shew what invention or improvement the laws passed in favor of Livingston and Fulton secured, or even purported to secure, what would you have said?

These are questions to which I know it is impossible for you to give any satisfactory answer--And if you cannot, you must acknowledge that the law you recommended to the legislature, "would have been, in effect, an entire repeal of the exclusive grants to Livingston and Fulton." What ever you may have thought, I know Governor Ogden considered that such would have been its operation----But at any rate, were you so entirely ignorant as not to perceive, that vou were laying the grounds of a litigation that must inevitably have been ruinous to Messrs. Livingston and Fulton. That you were inviting every miserable pretender to come in and contest their right with them: That if they could have subdued one they would only have the same grounds to go over again with another. And that they must have been borne down with the multitude of projectors who would have advanced their pretensions on grounds not "more relative" than Daniel Dod's or Hawkins's.

Was this a law which it was consistent with the faith, honor and justice of the state to pass? After Messrs. Livingston and Fulton had

V

so frequently had the encouragement of the state to expend their money in making and improving their establishment on the Hudson: when Mr. Fulton had devoted his whole means on the faith of this encouragement: when many, relying on the security that the state had held out by repeated acts, and after a solemn decision of the highest tribunal in support of these acts, had invested their funds in the property which they had reason to think was thus protected, would it have been consistent with faith, honor and justice, to pass a law which would have been as destructive of the property to which it related as if it had been an act of confiscation? If you continue to think such a law would have been consistent with faith, honor and justice, I am convinced that there is not an "undeluded, candid and impartial man,” who will think with you.

in

It was my intention to notice some passages your book, which have not immediately fallen within the range of the course I have pursued ; but on reflection, I do not think it worth my while. They were only such as tended to shew that you had not always preserved your "unruffled spirit ;" and to expose, as I think I could do, the miserable logic you have frequently attempted.

This performance, however, has swelled in my hands to a bulk so infinitely beyond what I contemplated, that I must bring it to a close But before I conclude, let me acknowledge an error

under which I labored till lately. When I formerly spoke and wrote of the report, I privately believed from a view of its contents, that it had proceeded from the pen of the petitioner himself; and perhaps was somewhat influenced by that opinion, in my manner of treating it. A careful perusal of your last pamphlet has, however, undeceived me; and I am now convinced, the report and the reported bill were entirely your own.

Your obedient servant,

CADWALLADER D. COLDEN.

Albany, 10th Feb. 1818.