In the reformation of our penal code, in the establishment of
the Lunatic Asylum, in the improvement of the New York Hos-
pital

, in the public schools of our city, in the establishment of the
House of Refuge, in the Manumission Society, and other bene-
volent institutions, I know you have long been fellow labourers;
you will, therefore, be enabled to furnish me with many interest
ing memorandums of Mr. Eddy, that cannot fail to prove accept-
able to the community. Your early attention to this subject, will
greatly oblige me.

Dear sir, your friend and humble servant, DAVID HOSACK.
To the Hon. CADWALLADER D. COLDEN. June 23, 1833. MY DEAR SIR,

It gives me great pleasure to learn that the biography of
Thomas Eddy

is to be written by so able a hand as Mr. Knapp.
I should be very happy to give him any information in my power,
which might tend to rescue from oblivion the merits and many
virtues of our deceased friend. All I can say might be comprised
in these few words:—That I knew him, and was very much asso-
ciated with him during the last thirty years of his life ; and that
there is no benevolent or charitable institution founded in that time,
of which he was not the zealous promoter, if the project for its
establishment did not originate with him. I would be more par-
ticular, but my memory does not serve me as to dates, and I have
no documents to which I can refer. I will nevertheless attempt
to give the general recollections of my associations with Mr. Eddy.
If it should be important to ascertain the dates connected with
the circumstances I shall mention; it may be done by resorting
to the public records, or the records of institutions of which he
was a member.

So far as I recollect, my first acquaintance with Mr. Eddy

com-
menced, from our having had the same views as to what has been
called the amelioration of our criminal code. I mean the criminal
code of the state of New York; and you must understand me
throughout as writing as if I were in New York; I was then quite
a young man, and I am not certain that my mind did not receive
the strong bias it had in favour of the abolition of the punishment
of death, from Mr. Eddy; though I, at that time, differed from