Mr. Roosevelt has frequently consulted me on the prospect of a connenxion between Roosevelt and you in the business of steam boats. I have hitherto refused to meddle with ...

The enclosed is a letter I wrote to Mr. Fulton in order to open the negotiations regarding the Steam boat. I had hardly closed it, when he, as if sent to me, walked into my office. I gave it him & the following is the substance of what passed after he had read it.

I know nothing of Mr. Roosevelt's claim upon Mr. Stephens [sic] or the Chancellor. I have indeed heard of an old agreement between them, but that can only bind the parties and not affect me. I have no pretensions to be the first inventor of the steam boat. Hundreds have tried it & have failed. Neither do I pretend to an exclusive right to Navigate steam boats except in New York. Perhaps that may be navigated as I am told but I am not afraid of this [??] & in the mean time I shall go on. Mr. Stevens may build a dozen boats if he pleases. Any body else may do so, but I shall prevent their adopting my principles. That to which I claim an exclusive right is: the so proportioning the boat to the power of the Engine and the velocity [??] with which the wheels of the boat [??] to both, as to move with the medium of the velocity attainable by the power & the construction of the whole machine. We then explained his principles at large, which I need not. We then proceed. I have had about $15000 in the project.

The Chancellor have expended about as much my principles I have given into the bargain & the great difficulty I find is to prevent his spoiling the whole by going out of the straight plain path which I have chalked out. If therefore there are any agreements which bind the chancellor to divide any interest he may have in the steamboats of any kind with others they do not affect me. They can only effect his share of our concern.

As to Mr. Roosevelt I think him a noble minded intelligent man & would do any thing to serve him that I could. I cannot let him into any part of the interest of the New York boats. That is arranged & in such order that it cost me no trouble but to keep it going in money & repairs, but I am now going to N. York & mean to establish a company with a capital of 300,000$ to navigate the Mississippi & into that I can let in my friends. I observed that by the term friend I am willing to advance capital ... [torn paper] ...If a company was the only object he had in view in collecting them together& that I believed your capital to be engaged. Well said he, there is the misfortune -- I asked whether any agency or something of that kind would not be a useful thing to a friend who had no capital, he said no doubt but that the scheme was still unripe, but you should be the first man he would see in New York & you would not be forgotten by him, or something to that effect. He leaves this place the 15th Febr and will be in N. York about then. Under these circumstances I think you must stick to the chancellor before Mr. Fultons arrival get some sort of terms out of him anything is better than a lawsuit & if he give nothing to his fears that you have a maintainable claim -- & I am sure he will give nothing from friendship -- You must go into chancery for your claim is only an equitable one & that is worse than getting nothing. You do not like my plain & [??] mode of thinking & acting, but it is certainly the most rational. I am not afraid of Fultons patent his ... [torn paper]

As to Fulton's scheme of sending your husband to the Ohio I highly approve it so far. It will give you a charming jaunt, and will effect a separate housekeeping, an object of the first importance to your happiness. Please to plague Mr. Roosevelt a little by reminding him of the bounce[?] he gave you when your mother urged this point as a preliminary to his marriage -- or the still more violent fit of surprise & almost anger that he proffered when she prophesied that he would be the first to desire the separation -- At the same time you must not stint[?] quick all the romance that belongs to his character ...

By letter received a few days ago from Lydia to her mother, we were happy to hear that the most fatiguing part of your journey is over. .... As to the scheme of establishing a steam boat, I do not flatter myself much on the subject, after talking it over with men who live beyond the mountains. But I will not say anything to discourage you.

As to your Steam boat scheme, permit me to offer you a few observations.

As you propose to relinquish the Mississippi scheme, I think that company owes a consideration, for so much of your reports, as ascertains their interest. This being represented as the more profitable part of the System, the price of your labor should be considerable. if they would give a percentage on the profits it would be well, but something they certainly should pay you.

As to the Ohio concern, it has this feature which I do not at all like, & which I think would be fatal to my joining in it if I were in your place. You who are to exert[?] all the labor, the responsibility & have already undergone so much, secure[?] to your partners 20 percent, while they without any person exertions receive this enormous profit, even if you should [??] by all your pains. On paper indeed it appears fair enough -- but I have seen so many things on paper which are fair nowhere else, that I have no confidence whatever in the calculation, at least not sufficient to persuade me that it would be safe for you to embark on this scheme on the principal on which it is proposed to you. If indeed it were stipulated that should the net profits of the first year be only ... [details of possible returns and percentages, hard to read]

I have two more letters from Henry a few days ago. He has the following passages:

"Mr. Fulton has been furnished with the detailed accounts of the steam boats, & has no longer I hope reason to be dissatisfied. Neither is Mr. Roosevelt engaged in any other speculation whatever, as you dreaded he might be. He is aware of your prejudices on the subject of his character, & will certainly avoid deserving them.

"The steam boat makes a trip to Natchez & back again in about 15 days from the time she leaves the levee. The success is very great, & I have no doubt of her clearing from 20 to 25000 at least per annum free of expense ..."

I am very sorry that the representations made by Henry respecting Roosevelt's conduct do not turn out to be confirmed by letters or accounts which you have received. I do not understand the motives of the conduct he has pursued, and must therefore leave it as it is, as all my endeavors, beginning long before he left Pittsburg; have been &c useless in attempting to point out to him the course his interest as well as his duty requires him to take. On her last trip Lydia sent us a regular journal of occurrences. We could not expect it this time, on account of her situation as respects her family. But nothing should have prevented his communicating to you the occurrences of each day.

I received a few days ago your very agreeable letter d[ated] Phila announcing the arrival of yourself and family safe at that place & I direct this to New York as the most likely course of finding you.

From what I hear, I do not conceive that your meeting with Mr. Fulton will be agreeable, or your connexion of advantageous continuance. Your remarkable silence respecting a concern so very important as that of the steam boat, from the moment of its leaving Pittsburg to your departure from N. Orleans has produced dissatisfaction and this dissatisfaction has necessarily continued so long that the habit of want of confidence in you will not easily be got over; nor can I blame the proprietors altogether, when I recollect, that you left Washington the last time with letters & papers from me of great importance to your attorney, & in a dreadful state of anxiety about you, & yet, that you never wrote a line home till your arrival a month afterwards at Pittsburg, leaving Mr. Ingersoll without information on your case for he had to apply to me long afterwards by letter on the subject. It appears to me that it would have been very easy to write a few lines once a week giving details of your voyage, of your cargo, passengers & even of the effects of the earth quake, & sending the letters, as Lydia did formerly, from the Port towns you passed. thus you would not only have informed, but have flattered the proprietors & kept them on good humor. With your long experience of mankind, you should know that it is easy to tresspass [sic] upon good humor, & be for ever[?] while services rendered in an ungracious manner as often cause of ill humor. I therefore look forward soon[?] to full separation of you from the steamboat proprietors, which will not remain a mere separation of interests but grow into an active hostility in which they will have all the advantage of money, influence & members.

The arrangements you write about depend on Fulton's honor & can only be complicated when we are together.

It is very extraordinary that there should be here two men who say that they have seen & one (Mr. Dawson) who says that he had suggested, the operation of a Delaware steamboat by fixing the paddles to the flywheel....

Mr. Shiras, the principal brewer of the place, as good & respectable man as ever lived, & who never will do wrong knowingly, was persuaded by French to build a little fishing boat, with a wheel behind, & a seesaw Engine. He worked with high steam without a condenser with a double circular boiler. When Roosevelt started the New Orleans boat, Shiras started with him, & with all his steam & the advantage of rowing behind, could scarcely keep up with the New Orleans boat in the gentle current of the Monongahela. But when Roosevelt turned up the Alleghany running at the rate of 3 to 4 miles an hour, Shiras kept up easily & on arriving at a violent rapid, the New orleans would hardly move up it, while Shiras run thro' with great velocity shooting ahead with great ease. You will ask how this happened. ...