for the Defence of this Island. Qg 



Wc are told that Mr. Fulton was then constructuig a boat 

 sufficient to contain eight men, with provisions for 20 days 

 and air tor 8 hours, and strong enough to bear submersion 

 to the depth of 100 feet, if necessary. At Havre (in a boat, 

 as would seem, of an inferior size) Mr. Fulton remained an 

 hour under water, made half a league of way in that time 

 with his boat horizontally situated, and at various deptlis, 

 where he found that the compass traversed exactly as on 

 the suitace. To his boat he attached a machine by means 

 of which he blew up a lighter in Brest harbour. When above 

 water, Mr. Fulton's boat is rigged with two sails, and has 

 exactly the appearance of a common boat *. 



Though my comments have already been pretty copious, 

 I cannot quit the subject without adding some remarks 

 which obviously arise out of it. In the first place, from our 

 quotation from sir T. Urquhart, it appears that Napier, 

 before his death, which happened in 1617, far from viewing 

 his invcntKjns as either " profitable or necessary," thous^ht 

 them only worthy of that everlasting oblivion to which'he 

 endeavoured to consign them. It is curious to observe that 

 sir Isaac Newton, his great successor in mathematical pre- 

 eminence, expressed to Dr. David Gregory, the astronomer, 

 the same strong disapprobation of all such destructive con- 

 trivances ; as we ^earn from the additions which his nephew, 

 the late Dr. Reid, of Glasgow, made to the life of Dr. .John 

 Gregory, prefixed to his works printed at Edinburgh m 

 1785t. 



Cervantes, who puts much excellent morality and philo- 

 sopli\ into the mouth of Don Quixote, a wise man in every 

 respect but one, m.ikeshim say'That " he verily believes the 

 inventor of arlillcry is now in hell.";}: MUton, in the 

 *' Paradise Lost," ascribes the invention of cannon to the 

 leaders oi th'^ infernal legions; and Dean Swift, in his tra- 

 vels of Gulliver, reprobates, with his usual severity, our per- 

 version (.:' geometry, meciianics, and c]icmistry,'to the dis- 

 covery of the means of muuial destruction. 



But., notwith;tinding the opinions of these great men, 

 which do infinite honour to their humanity, it is now gene- 

 rally agreed, that the modern battles with fire-arms, dis- 

 charged at a distance, in the midst of smoke and without 

 passion, are far less sanguinary than the close, we mjA- sav 

 personal and angry, combats of the anticnts; except vvlSen 



"* Sec the European Miga/ine for April 1802, p. 245. 

 + See also Dr. Mutton's Dictionary, article Qregory. 

 % Sec bmot'tt's Q;^ixc/t:e, vol. ii, p. 152, 



dccidvd 



