With a strong desire to promote the interest of the
State of New-York

, several intelligent gentlemen of
the state formed a society for the acquisition and
diffusion of all useful intelligence connected with
the inland trade and navigation of the country.
The society was called, the New-York Corresponding
Association for the Promotion of Internal Improve-
ment. When the association was organized, De
Witt Clinton was chosen President, and Doctor
Samuel L. Mitchell, and the Hon. Cadwallader D.
Colden, Vice Presidents, and Thomas Eddy, Chairman
of the committee of correspondence and publication.
The association exerted themselves for several years
with great assiduity, and the labours of the chairman
were very arduous, but promptly discharged. Who
has now the records of that association, I have not
been able to discover, but much valuable information
must have been collected by such indefatigable and
intellectual men as formed that association; and it is
well known, that their publications were numerous.

On the great subject of slavery, which is now agi-
tating the world, Mr. Eddy

took an early part. He
saw millions suffering in bondage, and willed them
to be free; but this was not enough; he knew that
means must be applied to ends, and that it was in
vain to deplore the condition of the Africans without
strenuous exertions. He was an active member of
the Abolition and Manumission Societies, and corres-
ponded with the philanthropists of Europe on the
subject, as well as with the leaders in the cause of
freedom in Hayti. He saw, as every wise man does,
that the evil was one that increased in magnitude
every day, and as time advanced, became more diffi-
cult to eradicate. It was the voice of such philan-
thropists, that assisted the politicians in fixing the
boundaries of the slave-trade, which was the first
step in the march of this charity; and which, if judi-
ciously followed up, will, in the end, drive the evil from
this country and the West Indies, and perhaps from