MONOPOLY OF STEAMBOATING. 



543 



afternoon ; time, thirty hours ; space run through, one hundred 

 and fif y miles, — equal to five miles an hour. Throughout my 

 whole way, both going and returning, the wind was ahead: no 

 advantage could be derived from my sail : the whole has there- 

 fore been performed by the power of the steam-engine." 



In a letter to one of his friends, Fulton wrote:- — "I overtook 

 many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and parted 

 with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of pro- 

 pelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left 

 New York there were not perhaps thirty persons who believed that 

 the boat would even move one mile an hour, or be of the least 

 utility ; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which 

 was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic 

 remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment 

 what they call philosophers and projectors. . . . Although the 

 prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to 

 me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the im- 

 mense advantage that my country will derive from the inven- 

 tion." 



The Clermont was now advertised as a regular passenger- 

 boat upon the Hudson. She met with numerous accidents 

 during the season ; and her obvious defects would have been 

 remedied by the application of as obvious improvements by Fulton 

 himself, had not other persons anticipated him by taking out 

 patents for improvements which they themselves proposed. They 

 thus caused him infinite annoyance, and even contested his right 

 as an inventor. Shipmasters, too, who looked upon his boat as 

 an intruder upon their domain, ran their vessels purposely foul 

 of her on more than one occasion. The Legislature saw fit to 

 counteract the effects of this hostility by passing an act pro- 

 longing Livingston and Fulton's privilege five years for every 

 additional boat established, — the whole time, however, not to 

 exceed thirty years. It also made all combinations to destroy 

 the Clermont offences punishable by fine and imprisonment. 



