We the undersigned, your Petitioners intrusted, respectively beg leave to make known to your Honorable Body, that our chief, almost entire correspondence, is by way of New Orleans, at present our letters & papers require fourteen or fifteen days certain, and by mishaps from their circuitous rout, in many instances from four to six weeks; that some of us after waiting thus long, are compelled to send 30 & even 4o Miles to Mt. Lebanon for letters that have passed arround us, hense if our business be important we seek private conveyance, when attainable, as much more expeditious.

We therefore most respectfully beg to submit & suggest to your honorable Body, that a direct weekly horse-mail from Alexandria, which is below the falls on Red River, to connect with the present Mail rout from Monroe to Minden La. at Mount Lebanon, which is a prosperous little village with a male and Female Schools, distant about 110 miles from Alexandria will lessen our contingences and secure our letters & papers in four to six days; and further, that from the uncertainty of Navigation over and above the falls on Red River this proposed rout will constitute the most safe & expeditious conveyance [north of us. Dependant as we are upon] New Orleans, for every thing, your honorable Body readily perceives, the invaluable benefit of placing us within four to six days of our great Metropolis, instead of so many weeks. By late arrangements, of the Carryer, if the proposed rout from Alexandria, arrive at Mt. Lebanon on Saturdays at five O. C. P.M. and leave for Alexandria on Monday at 8 or 9 O. C. A.M. it will form a most fortunate connection with the Monroe and Minden rout and

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secure to your Petitioners an inestimable blessing and convenience [...?] for which they will ever pray &c. &c.