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Assembly, I undertake to say, that the Committee would have adopted it. They would have had no objection, if it could have afforded you the least gratification, to have inserted in their Bill, the whole periphrasis, from the Preamble of the Act of 1798, and so to have amended the Proviso, that it should have read, "Provided always, that in such case, they do not in"terfere with any mode of propelling boats by means of "Steam or Fire, lawfully secured by the acts above men"tioned, or any of them."

But it is clear from what you have advanced, that no modification that human ingenuity could have devised, would have been acceded to. Nothing short of the absolute and uncontrollable possession of the means still in the power of the State grantees, for preventing all future examination of their right,could have contented them. From this circumstance alone, then, there appears something disingenuous in your objecting to the Reported Bill, on the ground of its absolute repeal of the laws antecedently existing; but, when you knew that it had been withdrawn by the Committee, without having been acted upon in the House, and another substituted by them in its stead, for the express purpose of obviating your objection, when you were conscious, that the suppression in your Memoir of these circumstances, had been detected and exposed, the persevering artifice by which you still hope to conceal them, must provoke the indignation as well as the contempt of all who value the simplicity of truth.

Let any man ignorant of those circumstances peruse the statement in your "Life of Fulton,"-of the proceedings in the Legislature,-or, the remarks in your "Vindication," on the Bill first reported by the

Committee, and say, whether he can discover, that another bill had been submitted to the actual consideration of the House, and the recommendations of the Committee eventually confined to the repeal of the cumulative remedies which had been given to protect Messrs. Livingston and Fulton in the enjoyment of their grant. If he cannot perceive this, Sir, the deception is complete; for such you knew to be the fact.

This substitution of the one Bill for the other, was not the result of any alteration of sentiment in the Committee, much less was it produced by a subsequent conviction, that the bill first recommended was objectionable in principle. It was made, Sir, in the spirit of accommodation, to meet the views of several intelligent and active members of the Assembly, who, whilst they were anxious that every question touching the validity of the State grant should be fairly investigated upon a trial at Law or in Equity, were nevertheless desirous to leave the grantees in the undisturbed possession of the Common Law remedies, to which they are entitled, independently of the forfeiture created by the Act of 1808.

Not, Sir, that it was imagined, that if Messrs. Livingston and Fulton could have relied on their Patents, they would in effect have been deprived of those Common Law remedies in any case. If Mr. Fulton were indeed the inventor of the combinations and improvements secured to him as his own inventions, under the Constitution and Laws of the United States, he would, in case of a violation of his Patentrights, have been entitled according to the doctrine of the Court of Errors, to an injunction from the Fe

deral Courts, had the proposed Law been passed.→→ But those to whom I have reference, had no greater confidence in the stability of Mr. Fulton's Patent, than Mr. Fulton appeared to have himself; and after hearing the argument at the bar of the House, they suggested a general repeal of the cumulative remedies, by which means, in a case like that of Mr. Ogden's, the question arising under the power of Congress to regulate Commerce, and many others, besides the single point respecting the Constitutional power of securing to Authors and Inventors the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries, would be open to discussion in the Courts below; whilst Messrs. Livingston and Fulton might still have recourse to an injunction at Common Law, to be issued in the first instance against a rival Patentee, if the Chancellor in the exercise of his discretion, should think proper to grant one.

Such then was the measure which I asserted the Legislature had the power to adopt,-a power, arising, not as you suppose, from the mere arbitrary fiat of their will, but a power, as I was careful to express it, "consistent with the faith, honour, and jus"tice of the State." That the Legislature had such power of interference, in regard to the remedies, was universally admitted in all the discussions which had taken place concerning it. The only doubt was, whether the forfeiture given by the Act of 1808, could be considered part of the right vested in Messrs. Livingston and Fulton, or together with the subsequent provisions of the Act of 1811, constituted a portion of the remedy. Indeed, the friends of Mr. Fulton had even expressed a willingness to concur in the passing of the substituted Bill, if the clause relating to the

forfeiture had been stricken out, and Mr. Fulton himself, would have stipulated for a repealing clause, restricted in its operation to the latter Act.

I did not, therefore, conceive it necessary in my former letter, to enter upon a regular course of argument to prove this conceded point. I merely directed your attention to the several Statutes giving the remedies in question. I appealed to the reasoning of your associate Counsel, and the opinions of the Judges in the Court of Errors, to shew, that it had been settled beyond controversy, that this forfeiture was a "cumulative remedy," and not any part of the "right antecedently existing ;"* and I ventured to presume, that it would not in any other case have been pretended, that the Legislature could not, without a violation of the public faith, alter, modify or repeal, the remedies given for the maintainance of any vested right whatever, provided the party entitled to it were left in the possession of adequate means to defend and enforce its lawful exercise and enjoyment.

I referred to the Law of Landlord and Tenant, not so much, Sir, for legal authority to support this position, as for an illustration to render it more plain; and in an argument upon a juridical subject, addressed to a Lawyer of great practical experience, I thought, I should have been as pardonable in the use of" technical language," as if he had already been elevated to the quorum, and had actually felt the dignity of presiding at the General Sessions of the Peace. But the "professional jargon" of my Letter, seems no less offensive to your peculiar taste, than the oc

* Vide Letter to Colden, page 76, and 9 Johns. Rep. 557. and 571.

casional introduction of a passage from the Classics.* In utter despair, therefore, of satisfying a fastidiousness so contradictory and capricious, I must persevere in thinking an appeal to the numerous Statutes varying and curtailing the remedy by Distress, although the subjects of that remedy are regarded by the Law, in the light of pledges given by the tenant for the faithful performance of the contract on his part, not altogether "irrelevant."

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You allow, nevertheless, that "no claim upon "public faith can be urged against the modification "of general remedies erected only with a view to ge"neral policy and expediency, and in no respect stipulated for in the bargains made between con"tracting parties ;"+ but you insist, that "the case "is very different, where the Legislature establishes particular remedies to secure and protect the rights acquired by individuals, in virtue of a spe"cial agreement with the State." You have not, indeed, condescended to point out wherein that dif ference consists, nor to shew, that the remedies form any part of that contract, the existence of which you again assume for here, as in many former instances, you consult your own convenience in preference to the rules of a vexatious dialectic, and very prudently take that for granted, which it was the business of your argument to prove.

If any special agreement, however, did at any time exist between the State and Messrs. Livingston and Fulton, the terms and conditions of it had been mu

* Vide Colden's Vindication, p. 144.

+ Vide ibid. p. 145.

Vide ibid. p. 153.