TO MR. BARLOW.
Washington, December 25, 1808.
Dear Sir,—I return you Doctor Maese's letter, which a pressure of business has occasioned me to keep too long. I think an account of the manufactures of Philadelphia would be really useful, and that the manufactures of other places should be added from time to time, as information of them should be received. To give a perfect view of the whole, would require a report from every county or township of the United States. Perhaps the present moment would be premature, as they are, in truth, but just now in preparation. The government could not aid the publication by the subscription suggested by Doctor Maese, without a special law for it. All the purposes for which they can pay a single dollar, are specified by law. The advantage of the veterinary institution proposed, may perhaps be doubted. If it be problematical whether physicians prevent death where the disease, unaided, would have terminated fatally,—oftener than they produce it, where order would have been restored to the system by the process, if uninterrupted, provided by nature, and in the case of a man who can describe the seat of his disease, its character, progress, and often its cause, what might we expect in the case of the horse,—mute, &c., yielding no sensible and certain indications of his disease? They have long had these institutions in Europe; has the world received as yet one iota of valuable information from them? If it has, it is unknown to me. At any rate, it may be doubted whether, where so many institutions of obvious utility are yet wanting, we should select this one to take the lead. I return you Gibbon, with thanks. I send you, also, for your shelf of pamphlets, one which gives really a good historical view of our funding system, and of federal transactions generally, from an early day to the present time. I salute you with friendship and respect.