“On the 3rd July, 1801, he embarked with three companions on board his plunging-boat in the harbour of Brest, and descended in it to the depth of five, ten, fifteen, and so to twenty-five feet; but he did not attempt to go lower, because he found that his imperfect machine would not bear the pressure of a greater depth. He remained below the surface one hour. During this time they were in utter darkness. Afterwards, he descended with candles; but, finding a great disadvantage from their consumption of vital air, he caused, previously to his next experiment, a small window of thick glass to be made near the bow of his boat, and he again descended with her, on the 24th July, 1801. He found that he received from his window, or rather aperture covered with glass, for it was no more than an inch and a half in diameter, sufficient light to enable him to count the minutes on his watch. Having satisfied himself that he could have sufficient light when under water, that he could do without a supply of fresh air for a considerable time, that he could descend to any depth, and rise to the surface with facility, his next object was to try her movements as well on the surface as beneath it. On the 26th July he weighed his anchor and hoisted his sails; his boat had one mast, a mainsail, and a jib. There was only a light breeze, and, therefore, she did not move on the surface at more than the rate of two miles an hour, but it was found that she would tack and steer, and sail on a wind or before it, as well as any common sailing-boat. He then struck her mast and sails; to do which, and perfectly to prepare the boat for plunging, required about two minutes. Having plunged to a certain depth, he placed two men at the engine, which was intended to give her progressive motion, and one at the helm, while he, with a barometer before him, governed the machine which kept her balanced between the upper and lower waters. He found that with the exertion of one hand only, he could keep her at any depth he pleased. The propelling engine was then put in motion, and he found, upon coming to the surface, that he had made, in about seven minutes, a progress of four hundred meters, or about five hundred yards. He then again plunged, turned her round while under water, and returned to near the place he began to move from. He repeated his experiments several days successively, until he became familiar with the operations of the machinery and the movements of the boat. He found that she was as obedient to her helm under water as any boat could be on the surface; and that the magnetic needle traversed as well in the one situation as in the other. On the 7th August, Mr. Fulton again descended with a store of atmospheric air compressed into a copper globe of a cubic foot capacity, into which two hundred atmospheres were forced. Thus prepared, he descended with three companions to the depth of about five feet. At the expiration of an hour and forty minutes, he began to take small supplies of pure air from his reservoir, and did so, as he found occasion, for four hours and twenty minutes. At the expiration of this time he came to the surface, without having experienced any inconvenience from having been so long under water.”
Fulton’s boat is pretty evidently the original from which Jules Verne took the idea of his wonderful submarine ship, the Nautilus. It was utilised for an important torpedo experiment, and a shallop was successfully blown up at Brest in the presence of Admiral Villaret and other officials. The submarine boat approached within two hundred yards of the hull which was to be destroyed, and fired its torpedo under water. The French Government employed him for a time to cruise about and watch our vessels, but no opportunity seems to have occurred for any attack, and he was evidently looked upon as a failure. In 1803, a correspondence passed between the English Government and Fulton, and he was induced to come to London, where he had an interview with Mr. Pitt and Lord Melville. “When Mr. Pitt first saw a drawing of a torpedo, with a sketch of the mode of applying it, and understood what would be the effects of its explosion, he said, that if introduced into practice, it could not fail to annihilate all military marines.” Fulton accompanied an expedition sent against the French flotilla in the roads of Boulogne, where his torpedoes were launched, but did no damage.
On the 15th October, 1805, he blew up a strongly built Danish brig, of the burden of 200 tons, which had been provided for the experiment, and which was anchored in Walmer roads, near Deal; within a mile of Walmer Castle, the then residence of Mr. Pitt. [pg 90]He has given an interesting account of this experiment in a pamphlet which he published in this country, under the title of “Torpedo War.” In a letter to Lord Castlereagh, of the 16th October, 1805, he says, “Yesterday, about four o’clock, I made the intended experiment on the brig, with a carcass of one hundred and seventy pounds of powder; and I have the pleasure to inform you that it succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations. Exactly in fifteen minutes from the time of drawing the peg and throwing the carcass into the water, the explosion took place. It lifted the brig almost bodily, and broke her completely in two. The ends sunk immediately, and in one minute nothing was to be seen of her but floating fragments. Her mainmast and pumps were thrown in the sea; her foremast was broken in three pieces; her beams and knees were thrown from her deck and sides, and her deck planks were rent to fibres. In fact, her annihilation was complete, and the effect was most extraordinary. The power, as I had calculated, passed in a right line through her body, that being the line of least resistance, and carried all before it. At the time of her going up she did not appear to make more resistance than a bag of feathers, and went to pieces like a shattered egg-shell.”
Notwithstanding the complete success of the experiment, the British ministry seem to have been but little disposed to have anything further to do with Mr. Fulton and his projects. Indeed, the evidence it afforded of their efficiency may have been a reason for this. However Mr. Pitt and Lord Melville may have thought on the subject, there had been a change in the administration, and the new ministers probably agreed with the Earl St. Vincent, that it was great folly in them to encourage a project which, if it succeeded, would revolutionise all maritime questions. Lord Grenville and his Cabinet were not only indisposed to encourage Mr. Fulton, but they were unwilling to fulfil the engagements which their predecessors had made, and that inventor, after some further experiments, of which we have no particular account, wearied with incessant applications, disappointments, and neglect, at length embarked for his native country.
But Fulton’s greatest fame rests on his steam-boats. In his first attempt made in France, where he was aided by Mr. Robert R. Livingston, a fellow-countryman, he was not successful. Their experimental boat was completed early in the spring of 1803; they were on the point of making an experiment with her, when one morning, as Mr. Fulton was rising from a bed in which anxiety had given him but little rest, a messenger from the boat, whose precipitation and apparent consternation announced that he was the bearer of bad tidings, presented himself to him, and exclaimed in accents of despair, “Oh, sir, the boat has broken to pieces and gone to the bottom!” Mr. Fulton, who himself related the anecdote, declared that the news created a despondency which he had never felt on any other occasion; but this was only a momentary sensation. Upon examination, he found the boat had been too weakly framed to bear the great weight of the machinery, and that, in consequence of an agitation of the river by wind the preceding night, what the messenger had represented had literally happened. The boat had broken in two, and the weight of her machinery had carried her fragments to the bottom. It appeared to him, as he said, that the fruits of so many months’ labour, and so much expense, were annihilated, and an opportunity of demonstrating the efficiency of his plan was denied him at the moment he had promised it should be displayed. His disappointment and feelings may easily be imagined, but they did not check his [pg 91]perseverance. On the very day that this misfortune happened, he commenced repairing it. He did not sit down idly to repine at misfortunes which his manly exertions might remedy, or waste in fruitless lamentations a moment of that time in which the accident might be repaired. Without returning to his lodgings, he immediately began to labour with his own hands to raise the boat, and worked for four and twenty hours incessantly, without allowing himself rest or refreshment; an imprudence which, as he always supposed, had a permanently bad effect on his constitution, and to which he imputed much of his subsequent ill health.
The accident did the machinery very little injury; but they were obliged to build the boat almost entirely anew. She was completed in July; her length was sixty-six feet, and she was eight feet wide. Early in August, Mr. Fulton addressed a letter to the French National Institute, inviting them to witness a trial of his boat, which was made in their presence, and in the presence of a great multitude of the Parisians. The experiment was entirely satisfactory to Mr. Fulton, though the boat did not move altogether with as much speed as he expected. But he imputed her moving so slowly to the extremely defective fabrication of the machinery, and to imperfections which were to be expected in the first experiment with so complicated a machine, but which he saw might be easily remedied. Such entire confidence did he acquire from this experiment, that immediately afterwards he wrote to Messrs. Watt and Boulton, of Birmingham, ordering certain parts of a steam-engine to be made for him and sent to America. He did not disclose to them for what purpose the engine was intended, but his directions were such as would produce the parts of an engine that might be put together within a compass suited to a boat. Mr. Fulton then designed to return to America immediately; but, as we have seen, he first visited England, and it is probable that he then gave new orders on this subject, as we find that the engine which was employed in the first American Fulton boat was of the manufacture of Messrs. Watt and Boulton, but it did not arrive in America till long after the time of which we are speaking.
Mr. Livingston also wrote immediately after this experiment to his friends in America, and through their interference, an Act was passed by the Legislature of the State of New York, on the 5th of April, 1803, by which the rights and exclusive privileges of navigating all the waters of that State, by vessels propelled by fire or steam, granted to Mr. Livingston by the Act of 1798, were extended to Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton for the term of twenty years from the date of the new Act. By this law, the time for producing proof of the practicability of propelling by steam a boat of twenty tons’ capacity, at the rate of four miles an hour, with wind against the ordinary current of the Hudson River, was extended for a period of two years. And by a subsequent law the time was enlarged to April, 1807.
Very soon after Mr. Fulton’s arrival in New York he commenced building the first American boat. While she was constructing, he found that her expenses would greatly exceed his calculation. He endeavoured to lessen the pressure on his own finances by offering one-third of the exclusive right which was secured to him and Mr. Livingston by the laws of New York, and of his patent rights, for a proportionate contribution to the expense. He made this offer to several gentlemen, and it was very generally known that [pg 92]he had made such propositions; but no one was then willing to afford this aid to his enterprise.
“In the spring of 1807, the first Fulton boat built in America was launched from the ship-yards of Charles Brown, on the East River. The engine from England was put on board of her; in August she was completed, and was moved by her machinery from her birth-place to the Jersey shore. Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton had invited many of their friends to witness the first trial. Nothing could exceed the surprise and admiration of all who witnessed the experiment. The minds of the most incredulous were changed in a few minutes. Before the boat had made the progress of a quarter of a mile, the greatest unbeliever must have been converted. The man who, while he looked on the expensive machine, thanked his stars that he had more wisdom than to waste his money on such idle schemes, changed the expression of his features as the boat moved from the wharf and gained her speed; his complacent smile gradually stiffened into an expression of wonder. The jeers of the ignorant, who had neither sense nor feeling enough to suppress their contemptuous ridicule and rude jokes, were silenced for a moment by a vulgar astonishment, which deprived them of the power of utterance, till the triumph of genius extorted from the incredulous multitude which crowded the shores shouts and exclamations of congratulation and applause.”
There can be no doubt that Fulton derived his general plan from the experiments of Symington. While that engineer was conducting his experiments under the patronage of Lord Dundas, a stranger came to the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal and requested an interview, announcing himself as Mr. Fulton, of the United States, whither he intended to return, and expressing a desire to see Mr. Symington’s boat and machinery, and to procure some information of the principles on which it was moved, before he left Europe. He remarked that, however beneficial the invention might be to Great Britain, it would be of more importance to North America, considering the numerous navigable rivers and lakes of that continent, and the facility for procuring timber for building vessels and supplying them with fuel; that the usefulness of steam-vessels in a mercantile point of view could not fail to attract the attention of every observer; and that, if he were allowed to carry the plan to the United States, it would be advantageous to Mr. Symington, as, if his engagements would permit, the constructing or superintending the construction of such vessels would naturally devolve upon him. Mr. Symington, in compliance with the stranger’s request, caused the engine-fire to be lighted, and the machinery put in motion. Several persons entered the boat, and along with Mr. Fulton were carried from where she then lay to Lock No. 16 on the Forth and Clyde Canal, about four miles west, and returned to the starting-place in one hour and twenty minutes, being at the rate of six miles an hour, to the astonishment of Mr. Fulton and the other gentlemen. Mr. Fulton obtained leave to take notes and sketches regarding the boat and engine, “but he never afterwards communicated with Mr. Symington.”[27] He, it has been shown, almost immediately afterwards ordered a marine engine from Messrs. Boulton and Watt, of Soho, near Birmingham. This engine reached America before the Clermont, which had [pg 93]been constructed at the instance of Fulton and Livingston, had been launched from the yard of Charles Brown, on the East (Hudson) River. She was decked for a short distance only, at stem and stern, her engines being open to view, while a house on deck, and over the boiler, accommodated passengers and crew. The boiler was set in masonry. Her engine was of almost identical size to that of the Charlotte Dundas. It is right to add that Fulton claimed no patent or privilege for this engine, which was so evidently founded on that of Symington. Her hull was quite as distinctly his own design, and was vastly superior in build to the Scotch vessel. The first trip of the Clermont was from New York to Clermont, the seat of Mr. Livingston, returning to Albany, and the average speed was five miles per hour.