96 



cocoons, and they were bringing in for sale from various 

 parts of the country. To have discontinued that market 

 at once, would have discouraged the farmers, and check- 

 ed the impulse which Congress had been giving to the silk 

 culture since the year 1826; and, what would have been 

 worse, Mr DUomergue might have accepted some of the 

 offers made him, and left this country. I therefore de- 

 termined to persevere : the cocouns were purchased, the 

 women hired, and the filature again set to work, not as a 

 business or with a view to any profit, but as a continua- 

 tion of former experiments. Mr D'Homergue was per- 

 suaded to remain in the United States, and to reject the 

 offers made to him by the foreign minister to whom I have 

 alluded, and by another, then in Philadelphia, who made 

 overtures to him in my presence. 



The period having arrived for the opening of the present 

 session of Congress, I had the honor of addressing a let- 

 ter to you, requesting that you would place the subject 

 before the eyes of your honorable House. I had the 

 satisfaction to see that my letter was promptly referred to 

 the Committee on Agriculture. Encouraged by this favor- 

 able token, and determined that no effort should be want- 

 ing, on my part, to promote so important a measure, I 

 resolved to accompany Mr D'Homergue to this city, that 

 he and I might be on the spot to give to the members all 

 the explanations that they might require. We attended, 

 together the Committee on Agriculture, who brought in 

 the former bill with a report not less favorable to it than 

 that of their predecessors. The order of the House, 

 which soon after followed, to place that bill among the 

 special orders of the day, convinced me of the high im- 

 portance which they attach to the subject ; and I should 

 not think it necessary to trouble them or you with this 

 letter, if the session were not so far advanced, and the 

 prospect of the bill being taken into consideration du- 

 ring its continuance diminishing every day. At any 

 rate, the part I have taken in this business, in consequence 

 of the facts I have stated, and which I have continued to 



