Disappointed by the lack of results, the French naval authorities refused either to let Fulton build a larger and more efficient submarine, or to grant commissions in the navy to him and his crew. He wanted some assurance that in case they were captured they would not be hanged by the British, who then as now denounced submarine warfare by others as little better than piracy. To guarantee their own safety, Fulton proposed that the French government threaten to retaliate by hanging an equal number of English prisoners, but it was pointed out to him that this would only lead to further executions by the British, who had many more French prisoners of war than there were captive Englishmen in France.
Napoleon had lost faith in the submarine, nor could Fulton interest him in a steamboat which he now built and operated on the Seine, till it was sunk by the weight of the machinery breaking the hull in two. So Fulton quit France and crossed over to England, where Mr. Pitt, the prime minister, was very much interested in his inventions.
Fulton succeeded in planting one of his torpedoes under an old empty Danish brig, the Dorothea, in Deal Harbor, in front of Walmer Castle, Pitt’s own residence, on October 15, 1805. The prime minister had had to hurry back to London, but there were many naval officers present, and one of them declared loudly that he would be quite unconcerned if he were sitting at dinner at that moment in the cabin of the Dorothea. Ten minutes later the clockwork ran out and the torpedo exploded, breaking the brig in two amidships and hurling the fragments high in the air. The success of this experiment was not entirely pleasing to the heads of the British navy. Their opinion was voiced by Admiral Lord St. Vincent, who declared that:
“Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed, to encourage a mode of war which they who command the seas did not want and which if successful would deprive them of it.”
Destruction of the Dorothea.
From a woodcut by Robert Fulton.
Six days after the destruction of the Dorothea, the sea-power of France was broken by Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar. Napoleon now gave up all hope of gaining the few hours’ control of the Channel that would have enabled him to invade England, and broke up the camp of his Grand Army that had waited so long at Boulogne. With this danger gone, England was no longer interested in submarines and torpedoes. So Fulton returned to America, to build the Clairmont and win his place in history. But to him, steam navigation was far less important than submarine warfare. In the letter to his old friend Joel Barlow, dated New York, August 22, 1807, in which he described the first voyage of the Clairmont up the Hudson, Fulton said:
“However, I will not admit that it is half so important as the torpedo system of defense or attack, for out of this will grow the liberty of the seas—an object of infinite importance to the welfare of America and every civilized country. But thousands of witnesses have now seen the steamboat in rapid movement and they believe; but they have not seen a ship of war destroyed by a torpedo, and they do not believe. We cannot expect people in general to have knowledge of physics or power to reason from cause to effect, but in case we have war and the enemy’s ships come into our waters, if the government will give me reasonable means of action, I will soon convince the world that we have surer and cheaper modes of defense than they are aware of.”
Fulton had been having his troubles with the navy department. Soon after his return to this country he had made his usual demonstration of torpedoing a small anchored vessel, but it was not until 1810 that he was given the opportunity to make a test attack on a United States warship. But stout old Commodore Rogers, who had been entrusted with the defense of the brig Argus, under which Fulton was to plant a torpedo, anchored the vessel in shallow water, stretched a tight wall of spars and netting all round her, and successfully defied the inventor to blow her up. Even a modern destroyer or submarine would be puzzled to get past this defense. Though compelled to admit his failure, Fulton pointed out that “a system then in its infancy, which compelled a hostile vessel to guard herself by such extraordinary means, could not fail of becoming a most important mode of warfare.”