o 



56 HISTORT OP 



rewards might be granted for their trophies, adequate to 

 the danger of procuring them. They lamented that 

 numbers of their nearest and dearest relatives were 

 retained in captivity among the savage heathen, to be 

 trained up in ignorance and barbarity, or be cruelly tor- 

 mented to death for attempting their escape : and they 

 prayed that no trade might be permitted with the Indians- 

 until their prisoners were returned." 



The year 1765 is remarkable for the birth of Robert 

 Fulton, who was born in Little Britain. He early showed 

 peculiar talents, and cultivated them abroad, as well as in. 

 his own country. He is distinguished as an inventor of 

 steamboats. In 1803, at the joint expense of himself and 

 Robert R. Livingston, chancellor of New York, and 

 minister of the United States to the French court, he con- 

 structed a boat on the River Seine, by which he fully 

 evinced the practicability of propelling boats by steam. — 

 On returning to America in 1806, he commenced, in con- 

 junction with Mr. Livingston, the construction of the 

 first Fulton boat, which was launched ir^Jlhe spring of 

 1807 from a ship yard at New York. There was great 

 incredulity among the people on the subject ; but this 

 boat demonstrated, on the first experiment, to a numerous 

 assemblage of astonished spectators, tlie correctness of 

 his expectations, and the value of his invention. The 

 same year, he suggested the first idea of joining the 

 western lakes and the Atlantic ocean by canal. 



In 1810, the legislature of New York appointed com- 

 missioners, with whom INIr. Fulton was joined the next 

 session, to explore the route of inland navigation from 

 the Hudson river to the lake Ontario and Erie. The 

 commissioners reported in 1811, 12, 14. Mr. Fulton was 

 very estimable in his domestic and social relations ; "but 

 what was most conspicuous in his character, was his calm 



