MEMOIR OF DE WITT CLINTON
PREFACE.
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When the author commenced the following work, it occurred to him, that independently of the general character of the illustrious subject of this Memoir, it became his duty to ascertain the nature and extent of the services Mr. Clinton had rendered to the various Literary and Benevolent Institutions of the city and state of New-York; and, more especially, to inquire into the history of the origin, progress, and completion, of the Canals of this state, with which his fame had become identified.
Until the family of the deceased had selected the Hon. John C. Spencer as the biographer of Mr. Clinton, the author acknowledges he had reason to believe he would have had the benefit of access to the private papers of his friend, and from which he had expected to receive much assistance. But while he rejoices in the judicious selection that has been made of a gentleman, who unites, with great abilities and acquirements, every qualification for the duty he has been requested to perform, the disappointment this circumstance has thereby occasioned to the author, will be readily imagined, and, he trusts, will be received as a satisfactory apology for any omissions, or errors, which may be found in this work.
Indeed, had he supposed the privation possible, which he has experienced, great as has been his attachment to Mr. Clinton, his respect for his memory, or the sense of duty, which a long and uninterrupted friendship had imposed on him, to perpetuate, to the best of his abilities, the remembrance of those virtues and deeds which had adorned the life of that distinguished statesman, the author, certainly, would have been at once deterred from attempting the performance of the task he has endeavored to execute.
Being thus deprived of that source of information upon which he had relied, he immediately commenced a correspondence with many of the personal friends of Governor Clinton, and especially with those who had been associated with him in the great and memorable events of his valuable life. From them, in addition to his own personal knowledge of Mr. Clinton, he has derived numerous and highly interesting facts; and it affords him great pleasure to acknowledge his obligations for the information he has thus received. To the Hon. John C. Spencer, Chancellor Kent, Cadwallader D. Colden, Dr. John W. Francis, Nathaniel H. Carter, and others, whose communications are more particularly detailed in the Appendix, he owes a debt of gratitude for many important facts which they promptly supplied.
Upon the subject of the canals of this state, which, since the year 1810, had been a prominent object of Mr. Clinton’s solicitude, it was not the intention of the author to give a full historical account of the events connected with that great achievement. This had already been ably done by the late Charles G. Haines; by John Van Ness Yates, the late Secretary of State; by Cadwallader D. Colden; and, to these may be added, the excellent Summary of the Canal Navigation of the United States, published by Professor Renwick of Columbia College.
{See Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and Art, Royal Institution of Great Britain.} The original object of the author was to ascertain the nature and extent of the services rendered by the subject of this memoir. It thence, also, became necessary to inquire, how far other persons had contributed, by their labours, to the accomplishment of the same great end. These inquiries have, necessarily, led to a much more extensive investigation of this subject than was, at first, contemplated. In the course of this examination, to the great surprise of the author, numerous facts have been disclosed, and many valuable documents obtained, which have never hitherto been communicated to the world, and which will be found to illustrate, not only the highly important services rendered by Mr. Clinton, but those also by others who have not been before known and appreciated among the benefactors of the state, and to whom much praise is due for the benefits which their talents and disinterested labours have conferred.The number and extent of those documents have unavoidably enlarged the Appendix to a very unexpected length, and have necessarily delayed the publication of the work. These circumstances, and the time occupied in procuring some of the materials, will account for the disproportion which will be found to exist between the original biography and the appended matter. Could these difficulties have been earlier foreseen, measures might have been adopted the better to have secured a more ample Memoir, and to have compressed the Appendix within more moderate limits.
DAVID HOSACK.
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