Grayson of Virginia was chosen chairman. On the afternoon of the 5th Cutler drove into New York' in his gig. Next morning he delivered his petition, in behalf of the Ohio Company, for the purchase of Western land, and he proposed terms and conditions for such purchase. He dined that day with Mr. Dane. A committee was at once appointed to agree on terms, and report. Next day, which was Saturday, and again on Monday, he con sulted Hutchins, the official geographer of the United States, about a location. On Monday afternoon he talked over terms with the com mittee, but to so little purpose that the pros pect of closing a contract seemed very small. But on this day Richard Henry Lee, having arrived from Virginia, took his seat in Con gress; and this day also the question of a territorial government was referred to a re constructed committee of which Lee was made a member. The other members were Edward Carrington, the chairman, also a Vir ginian; Dane, of Massachusetts; Melancton Smith, of New York; and John Kean, of South Carolina. All of these but Carrington and Lee had dealt with the subject before, at some time or other; and indeed all of the pres ent Congress who had ever been upon any of the committees that had canvassed it previ ously were on this committee, except those who were absent at Philadelphia in the Constitutional Convention. The Committee must have worked with remarkable expedition, for under date of the 10th Dr. Cutler made this entry in his diary:
— and Cutler had looked it over. But while the question of the government was pend ing, the main business of his trip was in abeyance; and being an inquisitive as well as a very learned man, he took the oppor tunity to run over to Philadelphia, where he might see the aged Dr. Franklin, the first philosopher of his time. The Federal Con vention that had now met for the framing of a National Constitution was also there, with Washington presiding over it, and most of the greatest statesmen of the country among its members. What took place while he was gone is told by Nathan Dane in a letter written on the 16th to his former colleague, Rufus King, who was now a delegate at Phila delphia. It seems to have been in answer to a request from King to " give him an ac count of what they were doing in Congress." He said : — "We have been employed about several objects, the principal of which have been the government enclosed i and the Ohio purchase; the former, you will see, is completed, and the latter will probably be completed to-morrow. We tried one day to patch up M[onroe]'s p2 system of W[estern] government; started new ideas, and committed the whole to Carrington, Dane, R. H. Lee, Smith, and Kean. We met several times, and at last agreed on some principles; at least, Lee, Smith, and my self. We found ourselves rather pressed. The Ohio company appeared to purchase a large tract of federal lands, — about six or seven mil lions of acres,— and we wanted to abolish the old system and get a better one for the government of the country, and we finally found it necessary to adopt the best system we could get. All agreed finally to the enclosed plan, except A. Yates. He appeared in this case, as in most others, not to un derstand the subject at all."
"As Congress was now engaged in settling the form of government for the Federal Territory, for which a bill has been prepared and a copy sent to me with leave to make remarks and propose amendments, which I had taken the liberty to re mark upon and propose several amendments, I The intelligent Yates was from New York, thought this the most favorable time to go on to and enjoyed the distinction of being the only Philadelphia. Accordingly, after I had returned the man in Congress who voted against theadopbill with my observations, I set out at seven o'clock." .tion of the Ordinance. The other members were so acquiescent that when the committee So it seems that the day after the committee 1 He enclosed a copy of the bill. was appointed, they had a bill drafted — or, - Perhaps he began to write " plan " and changed the what is more likely, they took Monroe's draft, word to " system."
