From Louisville onward the voyage was thrilling. The earthquake of 1811 came just after the New Orleans passed Louisville and this changed the river channels. At another time the boat took fire and was saved with difficulty. Along the shore the inhabitants were torn between terror of the earthquake and fright at this monster of the waters. The crew had to contend with snags, shoals, sandbars, and other obstructions. Finally Natchez was reached and here thousands of people gathered on the bluffs to witness this triumph of science.
At last the vessel arrived at New Orleans and the first steamboat voyage on the Ohio and Mississippi was an accomplished fact. The experiment, which began two years before with the flatboat voyage of a bride and groom, ended at the metropolis of the Southwest in the marriage of the steamboat captain to Mrs. Roosevelt's maid, with whom he had fallen in love during this thrilling and historic voyage. (See Latrobe, in Md. Hist. Soc. Fund-Pub. No. 6. A good summary of Latrobe's narrative is given in Preble: Chronological History of the Origin and Development of Steam Navigation, 77-81.)
[1126] Act of Jan. 25, 1811, Acts of New Jersey, 1811, 298-99.
[1127] Act of April 9, 1811, Laws of New York, 1811, 368-70.
[1128] Laws of Connecticut, May Sess. 1822, chap. xxviii.
[1129] Dickinson, 244.
[1130] Livingston et al. vs. Van Ingen et al., 1 Paine, 45-46. Brockholst Livingston, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, sat in this case with William P. Van Ness (the friend and partisan of Burr), and delivered the opinion.
[1131] The full title of this tribunal was the "Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors." It was the court of last resort, appeals lying to it from the Supreme Court of Judicature and from the Court of Chancery. It consisted of the Justices of the Supreme Court of Judicature and a number of State Senators. A more absurdly constituted court cannot well be imagined.
[1132] 9 Johnson, 558, 563.
[1133] The State Senate, House, Council of Revision, and Governor.