one heap thereof your brother Assaryquoh* sent to you to remember his friendship and unity with you, and as you are all of the same nation with whom we English have been in league of friendship, nothing need to be said more than only this, that it is a present from your brethren the President and council and Assary quoh, and shall serve to strengthen the chain of friendship between us, the English, and the several nations of Indians to which you belong. A French peace is a very uncertain one, they keep it no longer than their interest permits, then they break it without provocation given them. The French King's people have been almost starved in old France for want of provision, that made them wish and seek for peace; but our wise people are of opinion that after their belly is full, they will quarrel again and raise a war. All the nations in Europe know that their friendship is mixed with poison, and many that trusted too much on their friendship, have been ruined. I now conclude and say that we the English are your true brethren at all events, in token whereof, receive this present.

The goods being then uncovered, I proceeded, "Brethren, you have of late settled the river of Ohio for the sake of hunting, and our traders followed you for the sake of hunting also; you have invited them yourselves. Your brethren, the President and council, desire you will look upon them as your brethren, and see that they have justice done. Some of your young men have robbed the traders, but you will be so honest as to compel them to make satisfaction. You are now become a people of note, and grow very numerous of late years, and there are without doubt some wise men among you. It becomes you to act the part of wise people and be more regular than you have been for some years, when only a few young hunters lived here."

(Gave a belt.)

Brethren you have of late made frequent complaints against the traders for bringing so much rum into your towns, and you desired it might be stopped, and your brethren the President and council made an act accordingly, and put a stop to it, and no trader was to bring any rum or strong liquor into your towns. I have the act here with me, and shall explain it to you before I leave you, but it seems it is out of your power to stop it entirely. You send down your own skins by the traders to buy rum for you; you go yourselves down and fetch horse loads of strong liquor. But the other day, an Indian came from this town out of Maryland with three horse loads of liquor, so that it appears that you love it so well that you cannot be without it. You know very well, too, that the country near the Endless mountain affords strong liquor, and the minute the traders buy it they are gone out of the inhabitants and are travelling to this place without being discovered. Besides this, you never agree about it; one will have, the others won't have it, (though very few of them) a third says we will have it cheaper. This last we believe speaks out of your heart, (here they laughed.) Your brethren, therefore, have ordered that every cask of whiskey shall be sold to you for five bookst in your towns, and if the traders offer to sell whiskey to you and will not let you have it at that price, you may take it from them and drink it for nothing.

• Who is intended? H. H. M.

† Quere, Buckskins?

(Gave a belt.)

Brethren, here is one of the traders whom you know to be a very sober and honest man; he has been robbed out of the value of 300 books, and you all know by whom. Let therefore satisfaction be made to the trader.

(Gave a string of wampum.)

Brethren I have no more to say."

I delivered the goods to them having divided them before into five shares; gave a share to the Sinikers, a share to Kayuckers, Onontagers, Oneiders, and Mohacks, the third share to the Delawares, the fourth to the Wantats, Zisagechroanu, and Mahickans, the fifth to the Shawnoes.

The Indians signified great satisfaction and joy, and were well pleased with the cessation of arms; the rainy weather hastened them away with the goods into some houses, and night coming on, the speech was delivered to the Delawares in their own language by Andrew Montour, in my presence and some of the traders.

I acquainted the Indians I was resolved to leave them to-morrow and return homewards.

The 19th Scahuhady, Tanughrishon, and Oniadagarehra, with a few more, came to my lodging and spoke to the following purport.

Brother Onas, we desire you will hear what we are going to say to you in behalf of all the Indians on the Ohio. Their deputies have sent us to you; we have heard what you have said to us and we return you many thanks for the kindness in informing us of what passed between the king of Great Britain and the French King. In particular, we return you many thanks for the large presents; the same we do to our brother Assariquoh who joined our brother Onas in making us a present. Our brethren have indeed tied our hearts to theirs; we at present can but return thanks with an empty hand till another opportunity serves. To do it sufficiently we must call a great council and do everything regular, in the meantime look upon us as your true brethren.

Brother, you said the other day in council, if anything befell us from the French we must let you know of it; we will let you know if we hear anything from the French, be it against us or yourselves. You will have peace, but it is most certain that the Six Nations and their allies are upon the point of making war against the French. Let us keep up a true correspondence, and let us hear always of one another.

(They gave a belt.)

Scahuhady and the half king with two others had informed me that they often must send messengers to Indian towns and nations, and had nothing in their council bag (as they being beggars) either to recompense a messenger or to get wampum to do their business; and begged I would assist them with something. I had saved a piece of strouds and a half barrel of powder, one hundred pounds of lead, ten shirts, six knives, one pound of vermillion, and gave it to them now for the aforesaid use. They returned many thanks and were mightily pleased.

The old Sinicker Queen from above, already mentioned, came to inform me some time ago that she had sent a string of wampum of three fathoms to Philadelphia by James Dunnings, to desire her brethren would

send her up a cask of powder and some small shot to enable her to send out the Indian boys to kill turkeys and other fowls for her, whilst the men are gone to war against the French, that they may not be starved. I told her I had heard nothing of her message, but if she had told me of it before I had parted with all the powder and lead, I could have let her have some, and promised I would make inquiry; perhaps her messenger had lost it on the way to Philadelphia. I gave her a shirt, a Dutch wooden pipe and some tobacco. She seemed to have taken a little affront because I took not sufficient notice of her in coming down. I told her she acted very imprudently not to let me know by some of her friends who she was, as she knew very well I could not know by myself. She was satisfied, and went away with a deal of kind expressions.

The same day I gave a stroud, a shirt and a pair of stockings to the young Shawano, King Capechque, and a pipe and some tobacco.

The same day, about 12 o'clock, we set out for Pennsylvania, and travelled about twelve miles; rainy weather.

The 20th, left a horse behind that we could not find. Came to the river; had a great rain; the river not rideable.

The 21st, sent for a canoe about 6 miles up the river to a Delaware town. An Indian brought one, we paid him a blanket, got over the. river about 12 o'clock. Crossed Kiskaminity creek, and came that night to the round hole, about twelve miles from the river.

The 22d, the weather cleared up; we travelled this day about 35 miles, came by the place where we had buried the body of John Quen, but found the bears had pulled him out and left nothing of him but a few naked bones and some old rags.

The 23rd, crossed the head of the West Branch of the Susquehanna; about noon come to the Chcasts. This night we had a great frost, our kettle standing about four or five feet from the fire, was frozen over with ice thicker than a brass penny.

The 24th, got over Allegheny hill, otherwise called mountains, to Frankstown, about 20 miles.

The 25th, came to the Standing Stone; slept three miles at this side; about 31 miles.

The 26th, to the forks of the wood about 30 miles; left my man's horse behind as he was tired.

The 27th it rained very fast; travelled in the rain all day; came about 25 miles.

The 28th, rain continued; came to a place where white people now begin to settle, and arrived at George Croghan's in Pennsbury, about an hour after dark; came about 35 miles that day, but we left our baggage behind.

The 29th and 30th, I rested myself at George Croghan's, in the mean time our baggage was sent for, which arrived.

The 1st of October reached the heads of Tulpenhocken.

The 2nd I arrived safe at my house.

LIBRARY.

COLLEGE

HARVARD

IV.-Letter from Mr. Rembrandt Peale to a Member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, on the First Experiments of Fitch and Fulton in Steam Navigation.

PHILADELPHIA, JAN. 13th, 1848.

Dear Sir,-I cheerfully comply with your request to commit to paper some incidents of which I live to bear testimony, in relation to the origin of Steam Navigation. I do this the more readily, because Romance too often usurps the place of History, and disguises every branch of knowledge, as I know it does my own particular Art; there being many persons who take little interest in its history unless they are excited by the most marvellous anecdotes of painters. I leave to others the investigation of the first conception of Steam Navigation-the Chronology of the idea-and shall merely relate the events of which I was an eye-witness; with the conclusions which must be drawn from them.

In the spring of 1785, hearing there was something curious to be seen at the floating bridge on the Schuykill at Market Street, I eagerly ran to the spot, where I found a few persons collected, anxiously gazing at a - shallop at anchor below the bridge, with about 20 persons on board. On the deck was a small furnace, and machinery connected with a complex crank, projecting over the stern, to give motion to three or four paddles, resembling snow shovels, which hung into the water. When all was ready, and the force of steam was made to act, by means of which I was then ignorant, knowing nothing of the nature of a piston except in the common pump, the paddles began to work, pressing against the water backwards as they rose, and the boat, to my great delight, moved against the tide, without wind or hand; but in a few minutes it ran aground at an angle of the river, owing to the difficulty of managing the unwieldly rudder, which projected eight or ten feet. It was soon backed off and proceeded slowly to its destination at Gray's ferry. far it must have been satisfactory to Mr. FITCH, in this his first public experiment. I was not in the way of hearing anything of his views, but understood that soon afterwards he repeated his experiment on the Delaware, with improved paddles at the sides of the vessel; which is incorrectly recorded as his first experiment. It induced several gentlemen to furnish him with the means of going to England for the purpose of prosecuting his invention-but he died on the voyage. It is known that Mr. FULTON was a fellow possenger, and there is every reason to suppose that they freely conferred on the subject of Steam Navigation, being both men of frank and liberal minds. Mr. Fulton's motive in going to England was to cultivate his talent for painting, and to place himself, as he did, with Mr. WEST, who spoke to me of his character in the highest terms. Although he was successful in a great degree, of which his works bear evidence, yet he feared that America might not afford sufficient encouragement in the fine arts. He therefore decided to visit Paris, and devote his studies to civil engineering, as affording a better field for enterprise in his beloved native country.

It was fortunate for him that just as he was about to start, Barker's patent Panorama of London was opened. Fulton adopted the device, and in Paris, taking out a patent of importation, engaged with a capitalist in building two Panoramas on the Boulevards, and from them opening the passage Panorama, a covered communication with a populous part of the city-the prototype of other Arcades. These statements I have from himself. Thus furnished with the means, he prosecuted his studies; and afterwards, on his way to America, passing through London, was fortunate to buy, at Boydell's, the great pictures of "Lear in the Tempest," and the "Madness of Orphelia," by WEST, "Orlando," by Raphael West, and the original paintings, by SMIRKE, for Barlow's Columbiad. These pictures he liberally lent, during many years, to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts-an institution which I had originated, and for the commencement of which Mr. Joseph Hopkinson was induced to procure the necessary funds from his numerous friends. These are also historical facts, sufficiently interesting to be thus incidentally introduced. It is due to the reputation of Mr. Fulton to say, that his most ardent ambition was so to employ his talents as to accumulate the means of promoting the Fine Arts, by the formation of a great Gallery of the choicest Works.

In the year 1807, on a visit which I paid to Mr. Fulton in New York, I found him seriously disturbed in his nerves, complaining of the too kind persecutions of his friends, who wished him to abandon his projects of Steam Navigation. He told me they almost made him crazy. A few days after this, however, he invited me to a ship-yard on the East River, to witness his first experimental demonstration in America. When Í was admitted to the yard, to which only his intimate friends were invited, I perceived, some distance up the river, a common flat bottomed scow, with a number of persons on board, in the act of being turned round to return. When it began to move, and advanced on the calm water, against the tide, at the rate of four miles an hour, it seemed like a huge tortoise, paddling onwards with its fore feet, and produced in me the most lively sensations. As the scow touched the wharf, I jumped on a broad plank which crossed it midway, where Fulton stood alone, and seizing his hand, congratulated him on his success. With stiffened arm energetically pressed downwards, he held my hand without reply, or regarding me; whilst his eye, during some moments, glanced from one wheel, across his steam pots, to the other wheel, each in diameter only four feet, and half submerged-then suddenly recognizing me, he gaily shook my hand, exclaiming-"Yes, now I have it, they (meaning the wheels, and throwing his hands aloft), they must be of large diameter, and but little sunk in the water." Those who would detract from Mr. Fulton's reputation, say, that in crossing the Atlantic, after the death of Mr. Fitch, he became possessed of his papers and inventions-himself deserving no credit. The idea of water wheels, instead of paddles, occurred to many, and doubtless to Fitch, at the time of his departure for England; but it will be manifest, that if Fulton took his idea from Fitch, that idea must have been to employ small wheels, which he used in his first experiments; and I am the feeling witness to declare, that