That these difficulties were very great, so great indeed that to most men they would have been insurmountable, may be known from the fact that the Clermont was often, intentionally, run into by rival vessels on the river Hudson, and that the legislature was compelled to pass a law punishing by fine and imprisonment any person who attempted to destroy or injure her. Nor did his troubles end here. When the State of New York, convinced of the practical utility of his invention, granted him the exclusive privilege of navigating its rivers for a certain number of years, he was harassed by numerous law suits, and at last so thoroughly broken down by the oppressive influence of men of capital, who were either interested in the sailing-vessels, or in other inventions, that the State, in deference to the opinions of those sticklers who grudged him the merit of his labours, rescinded its concession, and passed a resolution that the boats built by Fulton were in substance the invention of his countryman, Fitch; a most unjust decision, as both of Fitch’s models, as I have shown, were valueless, while Fulton’s were practicable.
and to develop its power and usefulness.
But, to whomsoever the invention belonged, the merit of first permanently developing its power and usefulness belongs to Robert Fulton. He it was who showed how it could be made not merely an instrument of vast importance to mankind, but also an immense source of profit to all who adopted it, though he himself, if reports be true, derived no advantage from it, but died in 1815 very poor and almost broken-hearted through the persecution of jealous and narrow-minded rivals, leaving his family in greatly embarrassed circumstances, but at the same time leaving behind him an everlasting memorial of his energy and perseverance, and an enduring stigma on those who had taunted him with a “Fulton’s folly.”
The application of the new power to the propulsion of vessels was rapidly followed up in America, and, in 1809, the first steamboat was launched on the St. Lawrence of which an account at the time appeared in the Quebec Mercury.[95]
First steam-boat on the St. Lawrence, 1813.
In the spring of 1813, a second boat of increased dimensions was launched from the banks of the St. Lawrence. She was 130 feet in length of keel, and 140 feet on deck with a width of 24 feet, and by the account given by the Mercury she made the passage from Montreal to Quebec in twenty-two and a half hours, notwithstanding that the wind was easterly the whole time and blowing strong. But though the Swiftsure, for such was her name, beat the most famous of the sailing packets on the line (fourteen hours in a race of thirty-six hours), her owners do not seem to have been very confident of her movements under all circumstances or of the number of passengers who would patronize her, for she was advertised to “sail as the wind and passengers may suit.” The success of the Clermont for the purposes of passenger traffic on rivers soon, however, spread to other countries.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Ante, vol. i. Introd. p. xxxi. Arrian, Exped. Alex. 11, 21.
[3] Galley from Koyunjik, ante, vol. i. p. 276.
[4] See the bas-reliefs from Nineveh, British Museum.