By my Friend, Dr. Edwards, I beg leave to present you with this publication; which I hope will be honored with your Perusal at a leisure hour: the object of which is to Exhibit the Certain mode of Giving Agriculture to every Acre of the immense Continent of America By Means of a Creative System of Canals: When this Subject first entered my thoughts, I had no Idea of its Consequences: But the Scene gradually opened and at length exhibited the most extensive and pleasing prospect of Improvements; hence I now Consider it of much national Importance; and View it like the application of those particular principles which produce certain effects: Thus the discovery of the Mariner’s Compass Gave Commerce to the World. The Invention of printing is dissipating darkness and giving a Polish to the Mass of Men. And the Introduction of the Creative System of Canals as certain in their effects will give an Agricultural Polish to Every Acre of America. I therefore Beg Leave to Submit to your Contemplation the Last Chapter with the Supplement; which Exhibits the specific System for America: And hoping that your Excellencies Sanction will awaken the Public attention to the Subject; I Remain with all possible respect, Your Excellencies Most Obedient and Very Humble Servant, ROBERT FULTON. The letter, hopefully sent by a friendly hand, was duly received and politely acknowledged by our first president, who, on the 14th of December, expressed his thanks and confessed “the subject is interesting and I dare presume is well treated but as the Book came to me in the midst of busy preparatory scenes for Congress I have not had leisure yet to give it the perusal which the importance of such work would merit. I shall do it with pleasure, I am persuaded, when I have.” President Washington’s letter must have seemed somewhat disappointing, after waiting five months, but optimism was Fulton’s strong point and he thrived on even a crumb of encouragement. Accordingly, the day after its receipt, we find that Fulton followed up the matter by another letter; it shows that the young American had, as a base for calculation, only the carriage rates from Lancaster to Philadelphia, yet with how sublime a faith he prophesies the extension of a canal from Philadelphia to Lake Erie,—the first prediction of the great Erie Canal! It was a brave flight of fancy but was actually realized during the early part of the next century,—Fulton having been the earliest to foresee its possibility.