“Afterwards, there were two attempts made in Hudson’s River, above the city, but they effected nothing. Soon after this the enemy went up the river, and pursued the vessel which had the submarine boat on board, and sunk it with their shot. Though I afterwards recovered the vessel, I found it impossible to prosecute the design any further. I had been in a bad state of health from the beginning of my undertaking, and was now very ill. The situation of public affairs was such, that I despaired of obtaining the public attention and assistance necessary. I therefore gave over the pursuit for that time and waited for a more favorable opportunity, which never arrived.
“In the year 1777, I made an attempt from a whale-boat against the Cerberus frigate, then lying at anchor between Connecticut River and New London, by throwing a machine against her side by means of a line. The machine was loaded with powder to be exploded by a gun-lock, which was to be unpinioned by an apparatus, to be turned by being brought alongside of the frigate. This machine fell in with a schooner at anchor, astern of the frigate, and concealed from my sight. By some means or other it was fired, and demolished the schooner and three men, and blew the only one left alive overboard, who was taken up very much hurt.
“After this, I fixed several kegs under water charged with powder, to explode upon touching anything as they floated along with the tide. I set them afloat in the Delaware, above the English shipping at Philadelphia, in December, 1777. I was unacquainted with the river and obliged to depend upon a gentleman very imperfectly acquainted with that part of it, as I afterwards found. We went as near the shipping as we durst venture. I believe the darkness of the night greatly deceived him, as it did me. We set them adrift, to fall with the ebb upon the shipping. Had we been within sixty rods, I believe they must have fallen in with them immediately, as I designed; but as I afterwards found, they were set adrift much too far distant, and did not arrive until after being detained some time by the frost; they advanced in the daytime in a dispersed situation and under great disadvantages.
“One of them blew up a boat with several persons in it, who imprudently handled it too freely, and thus gave the British that alarm which brought on the ‘Battle of the Kegs.’ The above vessel, magazine, etc., were projected in the year 1771, but not completed until the year 1775.
“D. Bushnell.”
The man who handled the submarine boat in New York harbor was Sergeant Ezra Lee, and the ship mentioned was the sixty-four-gun liner Eagle. It is a great pity that a full record of Bushnell’s experiments and of the experiences of Sergeant Ezra Lee, who handled the strange craft, was not made for the benefit of subsequent inventors, because much useless labor would have been saved. For instance, every inventor who has since worked on the idea has had to learn for himself that it is utterly impossible to see through the water after he has been once submerged, while other matters of little less importance have been worked out over and again.
The attack on the Cerberus mentioned above was described by the British captain as follows:
“Wednesday night, being at anchor to the westward of New London, in Black Point Bay, the schooner I had taken, at anchor close by me, astern, about eleven o’clock at night, we discovered a line towing astern that came from the bows; we immediately conjectured that it was somebody that had veered himself away by it, and began to haul in; we then found that the schooner had got hold of it (who had taken it for a fishing line), gathered it near fifteen fathom, which was buoyed up by little bits of sticks at stated distances, until he came to the end, at which was fastened a machine, which was too heavy for one man to haul up, being upwards of 100 cwt.; the other people of the boat turning out, assisted him, got it upon deck, and were unfortunately examining it too curiously, when it went off like the sound of a gun, blew the boat to pieces, and set her in a flame, killed the three men that were in the stern; the fourth, who was standing forward, was blown into the water; I hoisted out the boat, and picked him up much hurt; as soon as he could recollect himself, he gave me the following description, as near as he could remember. It was two vessels shaped like a boat, about twenty inches long, and a foot broad, secured to each other at the distance of four feet, by two iron bars, one at each end, and an iron tube or gun-barrel in the centre, which was loose (as he had himself turned it round with his hand); they swam one over the other, the upper one keel upwards; the lower swam properly, but was so under water as just to keep the upper one a few inches above the surface; to the after iron bar hung a flat board, to which was fixed a wheel about six inches in diameter, and communicated itself to one on the upper side of the boat, of a lesser diameter; opposite to these was another wheel, on the flat of the under one or loaded vessel, which had likewise communication with the wheels of the upper boat; it was covered with lead, and the keel heavily loaded in order to keep it down in the water.
“The fatal curiosity of the seamen (who unfortunately had been bred in working in iron) set this wheel agoing, which it did with great ease backwards and forwards, and during their looking at it, which was about five minutes from the time of its being first put in motion, it burst. Upon examining round the ship after this accident, we found the other part of the line on the larboard side buoyed up in the same manner, which I ordered to be cut away immediately for fear of hauling up another machine, which I concluded was fast at the end, and might burst when near the ship.
“The mode these villains must have taken to have swiftered the ship, must have been to have rowed off in the stream a considerable distance ahead of the ship, leaving one of their infernals in shore, and floating the other at the distance of the line, which, from the quantity that we have got on board (near 70 fathoms), and what the man tells me they saved in the schooner, which was upwards of 150 fathoms more, must have been near 500 fathom; they at the length of this line put the other in the water, and left it for the tide to float down, which in this place runs very strong.