Page:Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison Vol. 1.djvu/88

50 this purpose. If I am correct will you please to inform me, Sir, whether it will be done under your direction at the seat of Government, or will you authorise me to employ some one of the printers in Kentucky to do this and other trifling articles in the Printing line—Such as land Patents, Civil and Military Commissions &c. The Citizens of the Territory suffer great inconveniance for the want of Printed Laws—& I shall shortly be ready to issue Patents for such of the land claims as have not been decided on by the former Governor. My proceeding on this subject shall be transmitted to you as it is brought to a close—which I hope to be able to effect in the course of one year from the present time. My labour in this business would be much lightened and the chance of making blunders rendered much less; If I could procure from Governor St. Clair certain Records in his possession, which exclusively relate to the land business in this Country. I have enclosed an extract of his answer to my application for these papers, in which he declares he does not think himself authorised to deliver them, without an order for that purpose from the President. 



8th Augt. 1802 Jefferson Papers: 2d series, vol. 42, no. 75



When I had the honour to see you in Philadelphia in the Spring of the year 1800 You were pleased to recommend to me a plan for a Town which you supposed would exempt its inhabitants in a great degree from those dreadful pestilences which have become so common in the large Cities of the United States. As the laws of this Territory have given to the Governor the power to designate the seats of Justice for the Counties, and as the choice of the Citizens of Clark County was fixed upon a spot where there had been no town laid out, I had an opportunity at once of gratifying them, of paying respect to your recommendation, and of Conforming to my own inclinations. The proprietor of the land 