While waiting Bonaparte’s answer and apparently while Admiral Decrès, Minister of Marine, still had the matter under investigation in accordance with Bonaparte’s instructions, Fulton wrote the Minister under date of 3rd December, 1800, saying among other things:[[3]]
You will permit me to observe that although I have the highest respect for you and the other members of the Government, and although I retain the most ardent desire to see the English Government beaten, nevertheless the cold and discouraging manner with which all my exertions have been treated during the past three years will compel me to abandon the enterprise in France if I am not received in a more friendly and liberal manner.
It is interesting to note that this is the only letter in French that has been found in the government archives written wholly in the handwriting of Fulton himself. The other letters in the possession of the French Government that are written in French were written by his secretary and signed by him.
Fulton’s wise and diplomatic friends, Barlow, Monge and Laplace, must have been absent when the above tactless lines were penned. That they were the actual handwork of Fulton himself would seem to indicate that he was actuated by a momentary burst of impatience, and that in his haste to give vent to his feelings, he did not wait for his secretary to write the letter in French. What was in consequence almost inevitable, happened. Admiral Decrès, as Minister of Marine, reported adversely on Fulton’s plans. Fulton’s letter, of course, had not served to overcome the settled objection of a sailor to mechanical innovation.
Chapter IV
NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE
Nautilus reconstructed and tested at Brest (1801). Reports to Monge, Laplace and Volney. Great expectations. Final rejection (1802). Partnership with Robert R. Livingston. Work begun on steamboat. British Admiralty aware of his submarine accomplishment. Induced to return to England (May, 1804).
The always faithful Monge and Laplace came once more to the aid of their temperamental friend. They personally intervened with the First Consul, and actually succeeded in persuading him to authorize the reconstruction of the Nautilus in spite of the adverse professional opinion of the Minister. He appointed a new commission to investigate, naming MM. Monge, Laplace and Volney. The last, unlike the first two, was not a scientist. He was an eminent scholar, a great traveller and member of the Institute. He had visited the United States five years previously and had written a book on its climate and soil. He narrowly escaped the guillotine, was created a count under the Empire, and a peer of France after the restoration. He died in 1820.
With the encouragement induced by the naming of this friendly commission, Fulton at once began his task. The Nautilus was transported from Havre to Brest and there refitted with the alterations and improvements that occurred to Fulton as the result of the Havre experiments. On July 3rd, 1801, he made his first plunge at Brest in his improved boat. This time he was accompanied by three men instead of two as on the previous occasions.
An account of what he did at Brest is preserved in a manuscript copy of a report that he made to the commissioners. This report was published by Mrs. Sutcliffe in her book on the “Clermont” but it is so graphic that with Mrs. Sutcliffe’s consent it is reprinted in full exactly as Fulton wrote it:
Paris 22d, fructidore An 9