CHAPTER VI
CAPTAIN BUSHNELL SCARES THE BRITISH
The Pioneer Torpedo Boat and the Battle of the Kegs
MANY of us, all our lives, have seen vessels of every size and shape darting to and fro over the water; some with sails spread to the wind, others with puffing pipes and whirling wheels.
And that is not all. Men have tried to go under water as well as on top. Some of you may have read Jules Verne's famous story, "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea." That, of course, is all fiction; but now-a-days there are vessels which can go miles under the water without once coming to the top.
We call these submarine boats, and look upon them as something very new. You may be surprised to learn that there was a submarine boat as long ago as the War of the Revolution. It was not a very good one, and did not do the work it was built for, but it was the first of its kind, and that is something worth knowing.
Those of you who have studied history will know that after the British were driven out of Boston they came to New York with a large army, and took possession of that city. Washington and his men could not keep them out, and had to leave. There the British lay, with their army in the city and their fleet in the bay and river, and there they stayed for years.
There was an American who did not like to see British vessels floating in American waters. He knew he could not drive them away, but he thought he might give them some trouble. This was a Connecticut man named David Bushnell, a chap as sharp as a steeltrap, and one of the first American inventors.
What Bushnell did was to invent a boat that would move under water and might be made to blow up an enemy's ship. As it was the first of this kind ever made, I am sure you will wish to know what it was like and how it was worked.
He called it The American Turtle, for it looked much like a great swimming turtle, big enough to hold a man and also to carry a torpedo loaded with 150 pounds of gunpowder. This was to be fastened to the wooden bottom of a ship and then fired off. It was expected to blow a great hole in the bottom and sink the vessel.