Pitt supports Fulton.—Mr. Pitt, then Prime Minister, was much struck with Fulton's various schemes of submarine warfare, and after examining one of his infernal machines, or torpedoes, exclaimed, "that if introduced into practice, it could not fail to annihilate all military marines."[B]
Though having secured the approval of Mr. Pitt, and a few other members of the Government, he was quite unable to induce the English to accept his schemes in toto, and at once employ them in the Naval service.
Twice Fulton attempted to destroy French men-of-war, lying in the harbour of Boulogne, by means of his drifting torpedoes, but each time he failed, owing as he then explained, and which afterwards proved to be the case, to the simple mistake of having made his machines specifically heavier than water, thus preventing the current from carrying them under a vessel's bottom.
Destruction of the "Dorothea."—Though in each of the above-mentioned attempts Fulton succeeded in exploding his machines, and though on the 15th October, 1805, in the presence of a numerous company of Naval and other scientific men, he completely demolished a stout brig, the Dorothea, off Walmer Castle, by means of his drifting torpedoes, similar to those employed by him at Boulogne, but considerably improved, still the English Government refused to have anything further to do with him or his schemes.
England, at that time, being mistress of the seas, it was clearly her interest to make the world believe that Fulton's schemes were impracticable and absurd.
Earl St. Vincent, in a conversation with Fulton, told him in very strong language, "that Pitt was a fool for encouraging a mode of warfare, which, if successful, would wrest the trident from those who then claimed to bear it, as the sceptre of supremacy on the ocean."[C]
Wearied with incessant applications and neglect, and with failures, not with his inventions, but in inducing governments to accept them, he left England in 1806, and returned to his native country.
Application to Congress for Help.—Arrived there, he lost no time in solicitating aid from Congress to enable him to carry out experiments with his torpedoes and submarine boats, practice alone in his opinion being necessary to develop the extraordinary powers of his invention, as an auxiliary to harbour defence.
By incessant applications to his government, and by circulating his torpedo book[D] among the members, in which he had given detailed accounts of all his previous experiments in France and England, and elaborate plans for rendering American harbours, etc., invulnerable to British attack, a Commission was appointed to inquire into and practically test the value of these schemes.