THE DEMOLOGOS; OR, FULTON THE FIRST.
At the close of the year eighteen hundred and thirteen, Robert Fulton exhibited to the President of the United States, the original drawing from which the engraving on Plate One is sketched, being a representation of the proposed war-steamer or floating-battery, named by him, the Demologos. This sketch possesses more than ordinary interest, from the circumstance that it is, doubtless, the only record of the first war-steamer in the world, designed and drawn by the immortal Fulton, and represented by him to the Executive, as capable of carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for red hot shot, and being propelled by the power of steam, at the rate of four miles an hour.
It was contemplated that this vessel, besides carrying her proposed armament on deck, should also be furnished with submarine guns, two suspended from each bow, so as to discharge a hundred pound ball into an enemy’s ship at ten or twelve feet below her water-line. In addition to this, her machinery was calculated for the addition of an engine which would discharge an immense column of water upon the decks, and through the port-holes of an enemy, making her the most formidable engine for warfare that human ingenuity has contrived.
The estimated cost of the vessel was three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, nearly the sum requisite for a frigate of the first class.
The project was zealously embraced by the Executive, and the national legislature in March, eighteen hundred and fourteen, passed a law, authorizing the President of the United States to cause to be built, equipped, and employed, one or more floating batteries, for the defense of the waters of the United States.
The building of the vessel was committed by the Coast and Harbor Defense Association, to a sub-committee of five gentlemen, who were recognized by the Government as their agents for that purpose, and whose interesting history of the Steam Frigate is copied in Note A, of the Appendix to this volume.
Robert Fulton, whose soul animated the enterprise, was appointed the engineer; and on the twentieth day of June, eighteen hundred and fourteen, the keel of this novel steamer was laid at the ship-yard of Adam and Noah Brown, her able and active constructors, in the city of New York, and on the twenty-ninth of the following October, or in little more than four months, she was safely launched, in the presence of multitudes of spectators who thronged the surrounding shores, and were seen upon the hills which limited the beautiful prospect around the bay of New York.
The river and bay were filled with steamers and vessels of war, in compliment to the occasion. In the midst of these was the enormous floating mass, whose bulk and unwieldy form seemed to render her as unfit for motion, as the land batteries which were saluting her.
In a communication from Captain David Porter, U. S. Navy, to the Hon. Secretary of the Navy, dated New York, October 29, 1814, he states,—“I have the pleasure to inform you that the “Fulton the First,” was this morning safely launched. No one has yet ventured to suggest any improvement that could be made in the vessel, and to use the words of the projector, ‘I would not alter her if it were in my power to do so.’