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ever, which I had the honor, I believe, of mentioning to you in a letter of March the 15th, 1784, from Annapolis. It is the cutting a canal, which shall unite the heads of Cayahoga and Beaver creek. The utility of this, and even the necessity of it, if we mean to aim at the trade of the lakes, will be palpable to you. The only question is, its practicability. The best information I could get, as to this, was from General Hand, who described the country as champain, and these waters as heading in lagoons, which would be easily united. Maryland and Pennsylvania are both interested to concur with us in this work. The institutions you propose to establish, by the shares in the Potomac and James river companies, given you by the Assembly, and the particular objects of those institutions, are most worthy. It occurs to me, however, that if the bill for the more general diffusion of knowledge, which is in the revisal, should be passed, it would supersede the use, and ob scure the existence of the charity schools you have thought of. I suppose, in fact, that that bill, or some other like it, will be passed. 1 never saw one received with more enthusiasm than that was, in the year 1778, by the House of Delegates, who ordered it to be printed. And it seemed afterwards, that nothing but the extreme distress of our resources prevented its being carried into execution, even during the war. It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too, of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This, it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan. Should you see a probability of this, however, you can never be at a loss for worthy objects of this donation. Even the remitting that proportion of the toll, on all articles transported, would present itself under many favorable considerations, and it would, in effect, be to make the State do in a certain proportion, what they ought to have done wholly : for I think they should clear all the rivers, and lay them open and free to all. However, you are infinitely the best judge, how the most good may be effected with these shares.
All is quiet here. There are, indeed, two specks in the horizon : the exchange of Bavaria, and the demarcation between the Em peror and Turks. We may add, as a third, the interference by the King of Prussia in the domestic disputes of the Dutch. Great Britain, it is said, begins to look towards us with a little more good humor. But how true this may be, I cannot say with certainty. We are trying to render her commerce as little necessary to us as possible, by finding other markets for our produce. A most fa vorable reduction of duties on whale oil, has taken place here,
