50 
account of the defective principle of applying the force. 
Endless chains, with float propellers, have been many times 
tried and have failed on the same ground. 
In 1795, Lord Stanhope made experiments with a boat on 
the Thames, using the reciprocating or “ duck’s foot” paddles, 
which also failed, from the loss of time and power by the 
return stroke. 
In 1785, James Rumsey, of Virginia, tried a boat on the 
Potomac, and afterwards in London, both without success ; 
and about the same time Mr. Fitch, of Philadelphia, tried 
one with paddle wheels, on the Delaware, but this boat also 
did not succeed and was given up as a failure. J. C. Stephens, 
of New York, made experiments in 1804, with a “boat 25 
feet long and 5 feet wide,” which of course did no good and 
was stopped as a failure, though again brought to notice as 
preceding Mr. Fulton’s. 
In 1788 and 1789, William Symington, in conjunction with 
Patrick Millar and James Taylor, made experiments with 
their patents for navigating by steam, and in 1802 com- 
menced running a boat on the canal at Glasgow which made 
three miles an hour, but after many changes of her propellers 
and trials, the scheme was given up and no more was heard 
of the steamboat of Mr. Symington until long after those of 
Fulton were widely spread over the American waters. 
In 1816, the Marquis de Jauffroy complained that the 
Fulton steamboat on the Seine had taken the “paddle 
wheels” invented by him and used at Lyons thirty -four 
years before, but also abandoned by him. To this charge 
Mons. Royou replied in the Journal des Debats , thus: — “ It 
is not concerning an invention, but the means of applying a 
power already known. Fulton never pretended to be an 
inventor in regard to steamboats in any other sense. The 
application ot steam to navigation had been thought of by 
all artists, but the means of applying it were wanting, and 
Fulton furnished them.” 
