First Practical Steamboat – 3

Measures were therefore immediately taken preparatory to constructing a steamboat on a large scale in the United States.

Continuing First Practical Steamboat,
our selection from James Renwick. The selection is presented in four easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in First Practical Steamboat.

Time: 1807
Place: Hudson River

Measures were therefore immediately taken preparatory to constructing a steamboat on a large scale in the United States. For this purpose, as the workshops of neither France nor America could at that time furnish an engine of good quality, it became necessary to resort to England for the purpose. Fulton had already experienced the difficulty of being compelled to employ artisans unacquainted with the subject. It is indeed more than probable that, had he not, during his residence in Birmingham, made himself familiar, not only with the general features, but with the most minute details, of the engine of Watt, the experiment on the Seine could not have been made. In this experiment, and in the previous investigations, it became obvious that the engine of Watt required important modifications in order to adapt it to navigation. These modifications had been planned by Fulton; but it now became important that they should be more fully tested. An engine was therefore ordered from Watt and Bolton, without any specification of the object to which it was to be applied; and its form was directed to be varied from their usual models, in conformity with sketches furnished by Fulton.

The order for an engine intended to propel a vessel of large size was transmitted to Watt and Bolton in 1803. Much about the same time Chancellor Livingston, having full confidence in the success of the enterprise, caused an application to be made to the Legislature of New York for an exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of that State by steam, that granted on a former occasion having expired.

This was granted with little opposition. Indeed, those who might have been inclined to object saw so much of the impracticable and even of the ridiculous in the project that they conceived the application unworthy of serious debate. The condition at tached to the grant was that a vessel should be propelled by steam at the rate of four miles an hour, within a prescribed space of time. This reliance upon the reserved rights of the States proved a fruitful source of vexation to Livingston and Fulton, embittered the close of the life of the latter, and reduced his family to penury. It can hardly be doubted that, had an expectation been entertained that the grant of a State was ineffectual, and that the jurisdiction was vested in the General Government, a similar grant might have been obtained from Congress. The influence of Livingston with the Administration was deservedly high and that Administration was supported by a powerful majority; nor would it have been consistent with the principles of the opposition to vote against any act of liberality to the introducer of a valuable application of science. Livingston, however, confiding in his skill as a lawyer, preferred the application to the State, and was thus, by his own act, restricted to a limited field.

Before the engine ordered from Watt and Bolton was completed, Fulton visited England. Disgusted by the delays and want of consideration exhibited by the French Government, he had listened to an overture from that of England. This was made to him at the instance of Earl Stanhope, who urged upon the Administration the dangers to be apprehended by the navy of Great Britain in case the invention of Fulton fell into the possession of France. After a long negotiation, protracted by the difficulty of communicating on such a subject between two hostile countries, he at last revisited England. Here, for a time, he was flattered with hopes of being employed for the purpose of using his invention. Experiments were made with such success as to induce a serious effort to destroy the flotilla lying in the harbor of Boulogne, by means of torpedoes. This effort, however, did not produce much effect, and finally, when the British Government demanded a pledge that the invention should be communicated to no other nation, Fulton, whose views had always been directed to the application of these military engines to the service of his native country, refused to comply with the demand.

In these experiments Earl Stanhope took a strong interest, which was shared by his daughter, Lady Hester, whose talents and singularity have since excited so much attention, and who long reigned almost as a queen among the tribes of the Libanus.

Although the visit of Fulton to England was ineffectual, so far as his project of torpedoes was concerned, it gave him the opportunity of visiting Birmingham, and directing in person the construction of the engine ordered from Watt and Bolton. It could only have been at this time, if ever, that he saw the boat of Symington; but a view of it could have produced no effect upon his own plans, which had been matured in France, and carried, so far as the engine was concerned, to such an extent as to admit of no alteration.

The engine was at last completed and reached New York in 1806. Fulton, who returned to his native country about the same period, immediately undertook the construction of a boat in which to place it. In the ordering of this engine, and in planning the boat, Fulton exhibited plainly how far his scientific researches and practical experiments had placed him before all his competitors. He had evidently ascertained, what each successive year’s experience proves more fully, the great advantages possessed by large steamboats over those of smaller size; and thus, while all previous attempts were made in small vessels, he alone resolved to make his final experiment in one of great dimensions. That a vessel intended to be propelled by steam ought to have very different proportions, and lines of a character wholly distinct, from those of vessels intended to be navigated by sails, was evident to him. No other theory, however, of the resistance of fluids was admitted at the time than that of Bossut, and there were no published experiments except those of the British Society of Arts. Judged in reference to these the model chosen by Fulton was faultless, although it would not stand the test of an examination founded upon a better theory and more accurate experiments.

Continued.

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