THE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



be treated as prisoners of war and not hanged as 

 pirates. Strangely enough this latter clause was the 

 greatest stumbling-block, as the proposed methods of 

 destroying battle-ships by torpedoes was held in such 

 disrepute that the French government would not grant 

 a patent rating the crew of torpedo boats or submarine 

 boats as legitimate belligerents. In effect, their atti- 

 tude was, that while a person was at liberty to de- 

 stroy an empire from the surface of the water, he 

 would be hanged as a criminal if he dived beneath the 

 surface and destroyed a boat. 



Discouraged by this stand of the French government, 

 Fulton removed to England, where he succeeded in 

 interesting the prime-minister, William Pitt, in his 

 novel boat. A commission was appointed consisting 

 of a number of prominent men, including Mr. Pitt, and 

 Fulton was requested to demonstrate what could be 

 done in actual practice by his submarine. On October 

 15, 1805, an old brig detailed for the purpose was de- 

 stroyed by Fulton by the explosion of a torpedo con- 

 taining one hundred and seventy pounds of powder. 

 Yet in the face of this remarkable demonstration the 

 commission remained unfavorable to Fulton's scheme, 

 although Mr. Pitt to the last retained his faith in the 

 possibilities of such boats. 



Recognizing that further attempts in England would 

 be fruitless, Fulton returned to the United States. 

 Here, in 18 10, Congress became sufficiently interested 

 to appropriate five thousand dollars to assist him in 

 his work, and as a final test of the boat he had built, 

 the naval authorities prepared the brig Argus to resist 



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