FULTON'S FIRST STEAM-BOAT. 91 



perseverance. On the very day that this misfortune happened, he commenced repairing it. 

 He did not sit down idly to repine at misfortunes which his manly exertions might remedy, 

 or waste in fruitless lamentations a moment of that time in which the accident might be 

 repaired. Without returning to his lodgings, he immediately began to labour with his own 

 hands to raise the boat, and worked for four and twenty hours incessantly, without allowing 

 himself rest or refreshment ; an imprudence which, as he always supposed, had a permanently 

 bad effect on his constitution, and to which he imputed much of his subsequent ill 

 health. 



The accident did the machinery very little injury ; but they were obliged to build 

 the boat almost entirely anew. She was completed in July; her length was sixty-six 

 feet, and she was eight feet wide. Early in August, Mr. Fulton addressed a letter to the 

 French National Institute, inviting them to witness a trial of his boat, which was made in 

 their presence, and in the presence of a great multitude of the Parisians. The experiment 

 was entirely satisfactory to Mr. Fulton, though the boat did not move altogether with as 

 much speed as he expected. But he imputed her moving so slowly to the extremely defective 

 fabrication of the machinery, and to imperfections which were to be expected in the first 

 experiment with so complicated a machine, but which he saw might be easily remedied. Such 

 entire confidence did he acquire from this experiment, that immediately afterwards he wrote to 

 Messrs. Watt and Boulton, of Birmingham, ordering certain parts of a steam-engine 

 to be made for him and sent to America. He did not disclose to them for what purpose the 

 engine was intended, but his directions were such as would produce the parts of an engine 

 that might be put together within a compass suited to a boat. Mr. Fulton then designed 

 to return to America immediately; but, as we have seen, he first visited England, and 

 it is probable that he then gave new orders on this subject, as we find that the engine 

 which was employed in the first American Fulton boat was of the manufacture of Messrs. 

 Watt and Boulton, but it did not arrive in America till long after the time of which 

 we are speaking. 



Mr. Livingston also wrote immediately after this experiment to his friends in 

 America, and through their interference, an Act was passed by the Legislature of the State 

 of New York, on the 5th of April, 1803, by which the rights and exclusive privileges 

 of navigating all the waters of that State, by vessels propelled by fire or steam, granted 

 to Mr. Livingston by the Act of 1798, were extended to Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton 

 for the term of twenty years from the date of the new Act. By this law, the time for 

 producing proof of the practicability of propelling by steam a boat of twenty tons' capacity, 

 at the rate of four miles an hour, with wind against the ordinary current of the Hudson 

 River, was extended for a period of two years. And by a subsequent law the time was 

 enlarged to April, 1807. 



Very soon after Mr. Fulton's arrival in New York he commenced building the first 

 American boat. While she was constructing, he found that her expenses would greatly 

 exceed his calculation. He endeavoured to lessen the pressure on his own finances by 

 offering one-third of the exclusive right which was secured to him and Mr. Livingston by 

 the laws of New York, and of his patent rights, for a proportionate contribution to the 

 expense. He made this offer to several gentlemen, and. it was very generally known that 



