340 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



tothebenefit of this donation. The 

 aforesaid twenty shares I give and 

 bequeath in perpetuity : the divi- 

 dends only of which are to be 

 drawn for, and applied by, the said 

 trustees, for the time being, for the 

 uses above-mentioned : the stock to 

 remain entire and untouched unless 

 indications of failure of the said 

 bank should be so apparent, or a 

 discontinuance thereof should ren- 

 der the removal of this fund neces- 

 sary. In either of these cases, the 

 amount of the stock here devised is 

 to be vested in some other bank, 

 or public institution, whereby the 

 interest may with regularity and 

 certainty be drawn and applied as 

 above. And, to prevent miscon- 

 ception, my meaning is, and is 

 hereby declared to be, that these 

 twenty shares are in lieu of, and not 

 in addition to, the twenty thousand 

 pounds given by a missive letter 

 some years ago ; in consequence 

 whereof an annuity of fifty pounds 

 has siTice been paid towards the 

 support of this institution. 



Item. — Whereas, by a law of the 

 commonwealth of Virginia, enacted 

 in the year 1785, the legislature 

 thereof was pleased, as an evidence 

 of its approbation of the services I 

 had rendered the public during the 

 revolution, and partly, I believe, in 

 consideration of my having sug- 

 gested the vast advantages which 

 the community would derive from 

 the extension of its inland naviga- 

 tion, under legislative patronage, to 

 present me with one hundred shares, 

 of one hundred dollars each, in the 

 incorporated company, established 

 for the purpose of extending the na- 

 vigation of James River, from tide- 

 water to the mountains ; and also 

 with fifty shares, of one hundred 

 pounds sterling each^ in the corpo- 



ration of another company, likewise 

 established for the similar purpose of 

 opening the navigation of the river 

 Potomac, from Tidewater to Fort 

 Cumberland ; the acceptance of 

 which, though the offer was highly 

 honourable and grateful to my feel- 

 ings, was refused, as inconsistent 

 with a principle which I had 

 adopted, and never departed from, 

 namely, not to receive pecuniary 

 compensationforany services I could j 

 render my country in its arduous 

 struggle with Great Britain for its 

 rights, and because I had evaded 

 similarpropositions from other states 

 in the union. Adding to this re- 

 fusal, however, an intimation, that, 

 if it should be the pleasure of the 

 legislature to permit me to appro- 

 priate the said shares to public uses, 

 I would receive them on those terms 

 with due sensibility ; and this it 

 having consented to in flattering 

 terms, as will appear by a subse- 

 quent law, and sundry resolutions, 

 in the most ample and honourable 

 manner ; I proceed, after this re- 

 cital, for the more correct under- 

 standing of the case, to declare that 

 ,it has always been a source of se- 

 rious regret with me to see the 

 youth of these United States sent to 

 foreign countries for the purpose 

 of education, often before their 

 minds were formed, or they had 

 imbibed any adequate ideas of the 

 happiness of their own, contracting 

 too frequently not only habits of 

 dissipation and extravagance, but 

 principles unfriendly to republican 

 government, and to the true and 

 genuine liberties of mankind, which 

 thereafter are rarely overcome. 

 For these reasons, it has been my 

 ardent wish to see a plan devised 

 on a liberal scale, which would have 

 a tendency to spread systematic; 



