98 Griswold on Submarine Explosion. 
the latter was immediately detached, and the clock com- 
menced going. ‘The clock was set for running twenty or 
thirty minutes, at the end of which time, the lock struck, 
and fired the powder, and in the mean time the adventurer 
effected his escape. 
t the most difficult point of all to be gained, was to 
fasten this magazine to the bottom of a ship. Here a diffi- 
culty arose, which, and which alone, as will appear in the 
ensuing narrative, defeated the successful operations of this 
warlike apparatus 
Mr. Bushnell’s contrivance was this—A very sharp iron 
screw was made to pass out from the top of the machine, 
communicating inside by a water jours ; it was provided 
with a crank at its Jower end, by which the engineer was 
io force it into the ship’s bottom : this screw was next to 
be disengaged from the machine, and left adhering to the 
ship’s bottom. A line leading from this screw to the maga- 
zine, mes.) the latter in its cesmuee neon for blowing up 
the vesse 
I shall now piscued to the count of the first attempt 
that was made to destroy a ship of w the facts o 
which, as os stated, Ivreceived Som. the bold adven- 
turer himse 
It was in “the saci of August, 1776, when Admiral 
Howe lay with a formidable British fleet in New-York bay 
a little above the Narrows, and a numerous British force 
upon Staten Island, commanded by General Howe, threat- 
ened annihilation io the troops under Washington, that Mr. 
Bushnell requested General Parsons of the American army, 
to furnish him with two or three men to learn the naviga- 
tion of his new machine, with a view of destroying some | 
the enemy's am J ng. 
ons immediately sent for Lee, then a sergeant, 
me two cant who had offered their services to go on 
board of a fire ship ; and on Bushnell’s request being made 
known to them, they enlisted themselves under him for 
this novel piece of service. e party went up into Long 
{sland Sound with the carctaney and made various experi- 
ments with it in the cad harbors along shore, and after 
having become pretty thoroughly acquainted with the mo de 
of navigating it, they returned through tle Sound; but dur- 
