I have never seen the drawings or read the letter of Mr. Fulton; but it is difficult for me to believe that he had invented in 1793, what was unquestionably the solution of the difficulty, and yet, in 1802, have dwelt in his letters to Livingston and Barlow upon his assurances of the certainty of success with endless chains and resisting boards. It is with no want of charity, that it is suggested, that Mr. Colden, in writing a biography, overlooked the possibility of its logic being criticized when compared with its facts.
There is some light, however, to be obtained from Lord Stanhope’s reply to Mr. Fulton’s letter. It is as follows:
“Holdsworthy Devon, October 7th, 1793.
“Sir: I have received yours of the 30th September, in which you propose to communicate to me the principles of an invention which you say you have discovered respecting the moving of ships by the means of steam. It is a subject on which I have made important discoveries. I shall be glad to receive the communication which you intend, as I have made the principles of mechanics my particular study, &c.” (There are no words italicised in the original. L.)
Certainly, it is only necessary to read this letter to be satisfied, that the one to which it is a reply, and it is not suggested that Mr. Fulton ever wrote another, could not have described the combination which made the steamboat the thing that it now is: or that it could have been accompanied by drawings shewing the plan finally adopted,—the Roosevelt plan, going back as far as 1782, and described in practical detail in the letter of 21st October, 1798.
It is true that Mr. Fulton obtained letters patent of the United States for his steamboat in 1809—in reference to which Mr. Colden says, as though to corroborate Fulton’s claim as inventor,
“They (the Chancellor and Mr. Fulton) entered into a contract, by which it was, among other things, agreed that a patent should be taken out in the United States in Mr. Fulton’s name, which Mr. Livingston well knew could not be done without Mr. Fulton taking an oath that the improvement was solely his.”
And a patent was in fact taken out, in those days when patents were had for the asking, and when none of that examination, which now protects the public, was required by law.
We have already seen, in the case stated for Mr. Wirt’s opinion, the allegation that Fulton neither subscribed nor swore to the specification; and that the name Robert Fulton was in the handwriting of another man. Unless this had been the fact, it would hardly have been alleged in a paper, prepared for the opinion of eminent counsel. But I have before me an original letter dated Trenton, January, 1815, addressed to Mr. Roosevelt by Delacy, in which the latter gives an account of the proceedings before the Legislature, and in which is this sentence:
“Fulton has the effrontery to avow his having got Fletcher to sign his name and makes light of it, as if he was entitled to violate the laws, as well as private rights, at pleasure.”
It is true, this is the letter of a partizan in a struggle before the Legislature. Still, the matter of fact would not be misstated in a private correspondence, where there was no conceivable motive to mislead.