Only you must not think that because he had so many clever notions about the implements of war he believed in nations killing each other off—no, indeed. He stood for peace more than a hundred and fifty years ago, before there was so much said and done to encourage it. He said: "The art of Peace should be the study of every young American!"
He stayed seven years in France and was pointed out wherever he went as "that talented young foreigner." He lived most of the time with an American gentleman, Mr. Joel Barlow, and his wife. They were very fond of Fulton and believed that the experiments he was trying,—to make vessels go by steam, would prove a success. They nicknamed him "Toot," because every evening, in his room, he was running a tiny model of a steam-engine across his work table, which gave shrill whistles now and then.
For as much as thirty years men in Europe and America had been trying to make vessels run by steam when Fulton finally succeeded in doing it. He built a boat which was fitted with a steam-engine and gave it a trial on the river Seine. Something broke, which let the vessel down on to the river's bottom, but Fulton soon had another puffing its way up and down a section of the Seine, while the people on the banks cheered and wondered.
Fulton returned to America and built a steamer which he intended to run on the Hudson River. He named it the Clermont, but it was generally spoken of as "Fulton's Folly" by the crowds who watched its building. The loungers who stood about jeering at the inventor were so disrespectful as they watched the last few days' work that Fulton feared they would smash it in pieces and hired a guard to protect it.
It was four years after Fulton had shown the model boat on the Seine, in France, that he started the Clermont up the Hudson River, in his own country. There were not thirty people in New York city who believed the steamer would go a mile in an hour. A few friends went aboard with the inventor, to make the trial trip, but they looked frightened and worried. The Clermont was a clumsy affair; its machinery creaked and groaned; no whistle seemed to work, so a horn was blown whenever the boat approached a landing. The crew carried on enough wood at each landing to last till they reached another. This wood was pine, and whenever the engineer stirred the coals, a lot of sparks flew into the air, and black smoke poured from the funnel. The crews on the ordinary sailing vessels were afraid of this strange craft that went chugging by them, and some of the sailors were in such a panic that they left their vessels and ran into the woods, declaring there was a horrible monster afloat on the water.
Well, the Clermont proved a great convenience on the Hudson River. It ran as a packet boat for years, and Fulton built other steamers. He realized that it would mean a great deal to America if some quick, cheap method of carrying people and freight along the great Missouri and Mississippi rivers could be used. His invention of the steamboat has given him the name of the "Father of Steam Navigation," and it has been a blessing to the whole world.
Besides being a wonderful inventor, Robert Fulton was a polished gentleman. He was tall and handsome, like his mother, as gentle as a child, and he had a charming way of talking, so whether he spoke of America, France, steamboats, or pictures, there was always silence in the room.
Think of the old Quaker teacher, Caleb Johnson, trying to ferule a few ideas into Robert Fulton's head! No doubt Mr. Johnson was worried, but Robert's head proved to be an uncommonly wise one.