ROBERT FULTON. 87 



plan for using steam at a very high pressure, to be employed in propelling road wagons., 

 and in an account of his plans, which he published in 1786, he suggests a mode of 

 propelling vessels by steam. "He states/' says Lindsay, "that in 1785 he placed his 

 engine, used to clean docks, in a boat upon wheels, the combined weight being equal to 

 200 barrels of flour, which he transported down to the water, and when it was launched 

 he fixed a paddle-wheel to the stern, and drove it down the Schuylkill to Delaware, and 

 up the Delaware to the city, ' leaving all the vessels going up behind, one at least half- 

 way, the wind being ahead. "' In 1794 and 1797 one Samuel Morey, of Connecticut, is 

 said to have built two steamers, which were publicly exhibited and made passages, but 

 which do not appear to have been afterwards employed. It is to Robert Fulton, who all 

 this time was working at naval applications of many kinds, that not merely America, 

 but the whole world owes the practical and continuous use of steam- vessels. He and his 

 associates started the first paying line of steam-boats. 



The life of this remarkable man is little known in England, and not generally even in 

 his own country. Pursuing then the plan which has guided the writer throughout this 

 work, he proposes to give it, for these very reasons, in fuller detail than has been usual 

 with better known examples of patient and struggling inventors. 



Robert Fulton was born in the year 1765, in the village of Little Britain, Pennsylvania, 

 of respectable, but not wealthy, parents. From his earliest years he showed a great 

 aptitude for the study of the mechanical arts, and, indeed, for the fine arts also. So 

 marked was his progress in drawing and painting, that he was recommended to go to 

 England and study art seriously. This at length he did, and for several years we find him an 

 inmate of Benjamin West's house. Most readers will remember that West, although he 

 spent the larger part of his life in England, and made his great successes there, was 

 by birth American. Fulton afterwards lived in Devonshire and other parts of England, 

 and practised art for a time, while his brain was busy with schemes for improving inland 

 navigation by the construction of canals, with new forms of bridges and aqueducts. Next we 

 find him in France living with the family of one of his countrymen, Joel Barlow ; 

 during this period he painted a panorama, which was a great success. In 1797 he 

 experimented with carcases of gunpowder practically torpedoes under water, and was 

 engaged in perfecting a wonderful submarine boat. The French and Dutch Governments 

 gave hirn some little encouragement, so far as fair words were concerned, and he wasted 

 a considerable amount of time in hanging about public offices, to be eventually disappointed, 

 for his plans were rejected. 



But the French Government changed. Bonaparte placed himself at the head of 

 it, with the title of First Consul. Mr. Fulton soon presented an address to him, soliciting 

 him to patronise the project for submarine navigation, and praying him to appoint a 

 commission with sufficient funds and powers to give the necessary assistance. This request 

 was immediately granted, and the citizens Volney, La Place, and Monge were named 

 the commissioners. In the spring of the year 1801, Mr. Fulton repaired to Brest, to make 

 experiments with the plunging-boat he had constructed the previous winter. This, so he 

 says, had many imperfections, natural to a first machine of such complicated combinations ; 

 added to this, it had suffered much injury from rust in consequence of his having been 



