THE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



In this war a "diving boat," supposed to have been 

 one of Fulton's submarines, made several attacks upon 

 the British man-of-war Ramillies off New London, in 

 the summer of 1 813. In the first two attempts the ap- 

 proach of the submarine was detected by the crew of 

 the man-of-war, who cut their cables, and stood out 

 of the harbor as quickly as possible. In the third at- 

 tempt, the diving boat succeeded in coming up in a 

 position directly under the Ramillies^ fastened itself 

 to the keel and made a hole in the planking large 

 enough to receive the screw which was to fasten the 

 torpedo in place. In the act of fastening it, however, 

 this screw was broken off, and the attempt had to be 

 abandoned for the moment. 



This attack created such a panic aboard the British 

 boat, that she did not return to the inner harbor but 

 kept constantly in motion outside. Not satisfied with 

 this protection against such "dishonorable attempts," 

 the British commander took on board his vessel a hun- 

 dred prisoners, apprising the Americans of the fact, 

 and assuring them that a similar action would be taken 

 by all the ships of the British fleet, so that in case a 

 vessel was torpedoed the American prisoners would be 

 blown up with her crew. This effectually frustrated 

 Fulton's plans; for when the fact became known in 

 the United States, the Americans were naturally as 

 vigorous as the British in protesting against Fulton 

 and his boats. 



Obviously the rule that "everything is fair in war" 

 was not accepted in practice a hundred years ago. 

 Fulton's attempts were regarded as the acts of a pirate, 



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