That the bank of a river is only what is above the high water mark:
That all below that mark is bed, or alveus, of which the batture is that portion between the high and low water mark, which we call the beach:
That it serves, as other beaches do, for a port while covered, and Quai uncovered: and it is the only port in the vicinity of the city which river craft can use.
That, as a part of the bed of the river, it is purely public property.
That it is not lawful for an individual to erect, on either the bed or bank of a river, any works which may affect the convenience of navigation, of the harbor or Quai, or endanger adjacent proprietors on either side of the river.
That though it is permissible to guard our own grounds against the current of the river, yet, so only, as to be consistent with the convenience and safety of others.
That of this the legal magistrates are to be judges in the first instance; but even their errors are to be guarded against by an indemnification for all damages which shall actually accrue to individuals within a given time.
That Mr. Livingston's works, in a single flood, had given alarming extent, both in breadth and height, to the batture: had turned the efforts of the river against the lower suburbs, and habitations, not before exposed to them; that they would deprive the public of what was their Quai in low water, |[72*]| and harbor* in times of flood: that, by narrowing the river one fourth, it must raise it in an equivalent proportion, to discharge its waters: that this would sweep away the levée, city, and country, or quadruple the bulk of the levée, and the increased danger to which that would expose it: and, even then, would infect the city, by the putridity of the new congestions, with pestilential diseases, to which its climate is already too much predisposed.
That Mr. Livingston was doing all this, of his own authority, without asking permission from the public magistrate, or giving any security for the indemnity of injured citizens:
That under the pressure of these dangers, the Executive of the nation was called on to do his duty, and to extend the protection of the law to those against whose safety these outrages were directed: