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Rh The Boston merchants were so pleased with that Wind and Current Chart, that they offered to raise 50,000 dollars to buy a vessel and keep her at my orders to try new routes. I said nay; and then they petitioned Congress to detail a man-of-war for the purpose, to which "Uncle Sam" gave apple-crust promise. Four vessels that I know of have tried the new route to the equator. The average of the four passages is ten days less than the average by the usual route.

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. . . . The charts are going a-head bravely. They are quite as much admired on the other side as on this and they do turn out exceedingly rich. Some new discovery, some new; law of nature is constantly starting up before proceed with our investigations. [Wm.] Lewis Herndon has the Whale Chart in hand; that will be of such importance to the whale-men that might well afford to give us a perpetual log in all their ships. . ..

Betty is going to school, and growing apace. I wish I could give her physic to keep her as a child. The idea of my daughters ever getting married is so unpleasant, that I am sure I shall never like the man who marries one. I hate him now from the bottom of my heart. Schools and education disturb me. If I were only a rich man I would devote all my wealth, time, and energies to reforming education. I would build a model college for boys, and another for girls, and be happy as are the angels in the consciousness of doing good. As a general rule, I regard colleges, as at present conducted, as humbugs, and female seminaries as downright cheats and now that the time has come for educating my own children, I find myself chained down by the vile system, and I am unable to break the fetters, because I am too poor to employ teachers of my own, and so have my children educated in regular ship-shape style. A little music for the girls is all I can get.