| 714. Docatmetits
potoinack in Which he informed the that lie would be down oil the Iąth.
he gave the a letter for you NN-hich the hearer will deliver to you as als~
one froin a A-Iemher of the Company a Colo Hunter in favor of 11Ir.
Runisay. I have sent a state of the falls in the river as they now appear
and have taken the liberty to inake a few remarks oil their, if your Ex-
cellency- should not have by you notes of this nature ,sufficient already
they
may he of service and if you should they call be distroyd. I thought it
iiiy duty to give you the best information I could. I atn with due Es-
teem your Excellencys most Obt. Servt.
GEORGE GILPTN
Sunday July 10th 1785
His Excellency General Washington at Mount Vernon
[Endorsement:] Colon'1 Gilpin's Letter and Observ'ns loth July 1785.3
XVI. THOMAS JOHNSON TO WASHINGTON.
FREn'K, 4 Novein'r 178;
sit.
The little Time we lead at our last sleeting 1° just allowed an Oppor-
tunity to mention several Things which were left very iniperfect though
we seemed much in tile same Opinion; aniongst them Applications to the
Assembly's to release the Company front a part of the depth of the Canals;
as the four feet draft of water, in our Circuinst's is so far froin
necessary
that it is in settle degree injurious I Nvish to see it in tile Road of Cor-
rection and I flatter myself that an Application cannot fail-the Friends
of the Company- being such on the principle of public Utility they must
be inililical to a wasteful EXpeiidit. of even private Alollev-the Eneinies
to the project being such oil the principle of Economy in the public Aloney-
they iliust be desirous of saving as much of the S,ooŁ public Money as
they possibly call so that we niay fairly count oil all the Votes foi- the
Convention if the tiew proposition will not render the Navigation less
useful. To lay a proper Foundation I have gone into the inclosed Calcu-
lation. No. I?1 I inav have ered in my principles or Deductions, for I
do not set up for Accuracy, and therefore wish it revised and set to rights
if wrong. No. z r= is the Draft of a petition and NO. 3 the Draft of a
and encouragement aided the inventor is not certain, but shortly after this
letter
was written, Rumsey was made engineer for the Potomac Company and gave his
undivided attention to the navigation of the river. In 1786 he successfully
pro-
pelled a boat by steam on the Potomac; in T788 a Ruinsey Society was formed
in
Philadelphia. Franklin being a member; and in 1792 Rumsey was in England
attempting to interest capitalists in his invention. Here he died
prematurely in
December of that year, having successfully operated a steamboat on the
Thames.
Washington and the West, pp. 32, 125-129; The Potomac Route to the West, pp.
153-164.
° Corrected by Washington from 1784 to 1785.
'° On Oct. 18, 1785, a two days' session of the full board of directors of
the
Potomac Company was held at the Great Falls. The Potomac Route to the West,
p. 163.
"This enclosure does not appear with the other papers.
" See next document.
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