The distilled water in all these instances, was found on experiment to be as pure as the best pump water of the city; its taste, indeed, was not as agreeable, but it was not such as to produce any disgust. In fact, we drink, in common life, in many places, and under many circumstances, and almost always at sea, a worse tasted and probably a less wholesome water.
The obtaining fresh from salt-water was for ages considered as an important desideratum for the use of navigators. The process for doing this by simple distillation is so efficacious, the erecting an extempore still with such utensils as are found on board of every ship, is so practicable, as to authorize the assertion that this desideratum is satisfied to a very useful degree. But though this has been done for upwards of thirty years, though its reality has been established by the actual experience of several vessels which have had recourse to it, yet neither the fact nor the process is known to the mass of seamen, to whom it would be the most useful, and for whom it was principally wanted. The Secretary of State is therefore of opinion that since the subject has now been brought under observation, it should be made the occasion of disseminating its knowledge generally and effectually among the seafaring citizens of the United States. The following is one of the many methods which might be proposed for doing this: Let the clearance for every vessel sailing from the ports of the United States be printed on a paper, in the back whereof shall be a printed account of the essays which have been made for obtaining fresh from salt-water, mentioning shortly those which have been unsuccessful, and more fully those which have succeeded, describing the methods which have been found to answer for constructing extempore stills of such implements as are generally on board of every vessel, with a recommendation in all cases where they shall have occasion to resort to this expedient for obtaining water, to publish the result of their trial in some gazette on their return to the United States, or to communicate it for publication to the office of the Secretary of State, in order that others may, by their success, be encouraged to make similar trials, and be benefited by any improvements or new ideas which may occur to them in practice.
II. Opinion on the proposition for establishing a Woollen Manufactory in Virginia.
The House of Delegates of Virginia seemed disposed to adventure £2,500 for the encouragement of this undertaking, but the Senate did not concur. By their returning to the subject, however, at a subsequent session, and wishing more specific propositions, it is probable they might be induced to concur, if they saw a certain provision that their money would not be paid for nothing. Some unsuccessful experiments heretofore may have suggested this caution.
Suppose the propositions brought into some such shape as this: The undertaker is to contribute £1,000, the State £2,500, viz.: the undertaker having laid out his £1,000 in the necessary implements to be brought from Europe, and these being landed in Virginia as a security that he will proceed,
| let the State pay for the first necessary purposes then to occur | £1,000 |
| Let it pay him a stipend of £100 a year for the first three years | 300 |
| Let it give him a bounty (suppose one-third) on every yard of woollen cloth equal to good plains, which he shall weave for five years, not exceeding £250 a year (20,000 yards) the four first years, and £200 the fifth | 1,200 |
| £2,500 |
To every workman whom he shall import, let them give, after he shall have worked in the manufactory five years, warrants for —— acres of land, and pay the expenses of survey, patents, &c. [This last article is to meet the proposition of the undertaker. I do not like it, because it tends to draw off the manufacturer from his trade. I should better like a premium to him on his continuance in it; as, for instance, that he should be free from State taxes as long as he should carry on his trade.]
The President's intervention seems necessary till the contracts shall be concluded. It is presumed he would not like to be embarrassed afterwards with the details of superintendence. Suppose, in his answer to the Governor of Virginia, he should say that the undertaker being in Europe, more specific propositions cannot be obtained from him in time to be laid before this assembly; that in order to secure to the State the benefits of the establishment, and yet guard them against an unproductive grant of money, he thinks some plan like the preceding one might be proposed to the undertaker.
That as it is not known whether he would accept it exactly in that form, it might disappoint the views of the State were they to prescribe that or any other form rigorously, consequently that a discretionary power must be given to a certain extent.
That he would willingly coöperate with their executive in effecting the contract, and certainly would not conclude it on any terms worse for the State than those before explained, and that the contracts being once concluded, his distance and other occupations would oblige him to leave the execution open to the Executive of the State.