Letter from George Baron to John Vaughan, April 25, 1806.
Sir,
If my memory be correct you have been informed by Mr. Garnett of my intention of publishing a new system of Navigation essentially different from every treatise hitherto extant on the subject. The fact is that I can certainly demonstrate to any scientific gentleman that our writers on Navigation have from the earliest times to the present, departed from the real nature of their subject, and have introduced artificial mechanisms into their works which serve only to perplex the learner and lengthen the practical methods of calculations. The Philosophical Society of Philadelphia may if they think proper have my intended System of Navigation clearly unfolded to them in the first week of June next; for I shall spend that week in your city. You will much oblige me by communicating the contents of this letter to that Society. I do not wish to trouble you with writing an answer to this, as I shall call on you on Sudnday evening June 1st next.
I am Sir
Your humb. Servt.
G. Baron
Jno Vaughan Esq.
The letter is addressed "Jno Vaughan Esq. / Merchant / Philadelphia". An annotation on the envelope indicates that this was received on the 26th (so the next day!) and read at the meeting of May 2, 1806. That this, indeed, happened is recorded in the Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society . . . compiled from manuscript minutes of meetings from 1744 to 1838 (1884), vol. 22, pt. 3. From the minutes of the meeting of May 2, 1806 (p. 385) we find
Letter from G. Barron [sic], mentioning his intention of communicating a New System of Navigation to the Society next June. Patterson and Wiley appointed to receive it.
At the next meeting, June 20, 1806 (p. 386) we find
Committee to converse with Mr. Barron [sic] reported "that he had promised to draw up a memoir respecting his intended publication on Navigation."
Original in the library of the American Philosophical Society [known through Hogan 1976]. Saw the letter April 23, 2004 and had a photocopy made.