Friday 9th. Exercised on Horseback in the forenoon.
Received the “Act for the encouragement of Arts from a Comee. of Congress.”
The company who visited Mrs. Washington this afternoon was very numerous—both of Gentlemen & Ladies.
act: This statute, the first patent law, provided the administrative machinery for registering patents and granted inventors for any term not exceeding 14 years “the sole and exclusive right and liberty of making, constructing, using and vending to others to be used, the said invention or discovery” ( 109–12 [10 April 1789]).