We find Fulton thus alluding to the navigation of the Mississippi. It was the original intention in the model of the Clermont, which was especially adapted for shallow waters. Indeed, up to this time, as remarked by Professor Renwick, "although the exclu sive grant had been sought and obtained from the State of New York, it does not appear that either Fulton or his associate had been fully aware of the vast opening which the navigation of the Hudson presented for the use of steam." The demand for travel soon outran the narrow accommodations of the Clermont, now put upon her regular trips upon the river; another vessel was built, larger and of finer appointments; punctuality was established, and the brilliant steamboat service of the Hudson fairly com menced. day afternoon, September 14th, 1807, | pleasure in reflecting on the immense from a dock in the upper part of the advantage my country will derive from city on the North River. In thirty- the invention." two hours she made her destination, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. On her return to New York, a few days after, the voyage was made in thirty hours. A passage from the letter of Fulton to his friend, Joel Barlow, affords an interesting memorial of the occasion. After stating that the voyage had turned out rather more favorably than he had calculated, and remarking that, with a light breeze against him, he had, solely by the aid of the engine," overtaken many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and parted with them as if they had been at anchor," he adds, "The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left New York, there were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would ever move one mile an hour, or be of the least utility; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors. Having employed much time, money and zeal in accomplishing this work, it gives me, as it will you, great pleasure to see it fully answer my expectations. It will give a cheap and quick convey. ance to the merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri and other great rivers, which are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen; and although the prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to me, I feel infinitely more After a review of the pretensions of all claimants, the honor appears fairly due to Fulton, of the first practical application of steam, worthy the mention, to navigation. There had indeed been earlier attempts, both in this country and abroad; but, as shown in the concise yet comprehensive summary of Professor Renwick, they could be of but little importance before James Watt, in 1786, completed the structure of the double-acting condensing engine. After this invention be came known, the chief rival claimant is Patrick Miller, of Dalswinton, who does appear to have thought seriously of the thing in 1787, and employed the engineer Symington to complete a model for him in 1791. "If we may credit the evidence which has been adduced," says Renwick, "the experiment was as successful as the first attempts of Fulton; but it did not give to the inventor that degree of confidence which was necessary to induce him to embark his fortune in the enterprise." Symington's subsequent attempt, in 1801, was but a renewal of the idea and plan of Miller. Fulton's first letter on the subject, to Earl Stanhope, it will be remembered, was in 1793, and his practical experiments in France began in 1802. In the history of inventions, it is not uncommon to find in this way claimants starting up after the fact is established; men of half ideas and immature efforts; intelligent dreamers, perhaps, but wanting confidence or ability to put their visions into act. It is emphatically the man who accomplishes, who makes a living reality of the immature project, who is entitled to the credit. The world thus pays a respect to Franklin for his discoveries in electricity, which he would never have gained had he not demonstrated their truth by drawing down the lightning from heaven. Potentially, the steamboat of Fulton lay in the steam-engine of Watt. Practically, it did not exist before the American inventor directed the Clermont along the waters of the Hudson, dwell for a moment upon this period of success, consecrated to felicity in the marriage of the triumphant inventor with the niece of his friend and partner Chancellor Livingston. Miss Harriet Livingston was the ornament of the society of which her eminent uncle was the head. "Preeminent," we are told, "in beauty, grace and accomplishments, she speedily attracted the ardent admiration of Fulton; and this was returned by an estimate of his talent and genius, amounting almost to enthusiasm. The epoch of their nuptials, the spring of 1808, was that of Fulton's greatest glory. Everything, in fact, appeared to concur in enhancing the advantages of his position. Leaving out of view all questions of romance, his bride was such as the most impartial judgment would have selected; young, lovely, highly educated, intelligent, possessed of what, in those days, was accounted wealth. His long labors in adapting the steamengine to the purposes of navigation, had been followed by complete suc cess; and that very success had opened to him, through the exclusive grant of the navigation of the Hudson, the prospect of vast riches. Esteemed and honored, even by those who had been most incredulous while his scheme was in embryo, he felt himself placed on the highest step of the social scale." Then followed what may be called the reaction-the test to which every species of prosperity is in some way exposed. The most ordinary acquisi tion of wealth requires the exercise of new arts and ability to retain it. Much more is the successful inventor tracked by a new swarm of opponents. The very men, perhaps, who laughed at his folly before his invention was completed, may assist in robbing him of its results. Success, too, is sometimes expensive. It requires constantly new outlay to meet its own vociferous demands. What with the rapid increase of travel, the consequent enlarged expenditure, the necessary dependence upon stewards, and above all the legal attacks upon his patent, Fulton may have felt with Frankenstein, that his mechanism had given birth and powers to a monster, destined to vex and crush him in its embrace. Instead of reaping the rewards of the invention, he was entangled in a business enterprise of a costly character, beset with legal difficulties. The exclusive navigation of the waters of New York was too wide a privilege to be given by the Legislature of a single State; so that the discussion of the grant became a grave political question. This conflict of laws was especially disastrous to Fulton, in the difficulties which arose in New York and New Jersey in respect to the ferry, at the city, between the opposite shores, from which he expected a considerable rev enue. Having now seen Fulton place steamboat navigation on a permanent footing on the Hudson, we may return to his favorite studies of the arts of military warfare, in the destruction of enemies' ships afloat. We find him following up the successful exhibition of the "torpedo" off the Battery, by fresh appeals to Government, seconded by the social influence of his friend, Joel Barlow, who had now established himself at his seat, Kalorama, at Washing ton. A work was published by Fulton, fully describing his proceedings, entitled, "Torpedo-war; or, Submarine Explosions"-with the motto, The Liberty of the Seas will be the Happiness of the Earth. An appropriation was made by Congress, and new experiments or dered at New York, before a board of observation, in 1810. Commodore Rodgers was at the head of the commission. Extraordinary precautions were taken to defend the vessel exposed to attack, which had the effect of baffling the inventor's efforts, while they proved the formidable nature of the assailant which they were intended to guard against. Old naval officers are chary of new inventions, and, it was thought by some, hardly showed Fulton's contrivances fair play. The report to the Government was a mutilated affair, which, if it did not censure, found little to commend. The invention, however, was not lost sight of when a period of actual warfare called such defences into requisition. His devices seem to have had the effect, at least, of infusing a wholesome dread into the minds of British officers, cruising about the waters in the vicinity of New York. An incident related of Fulton, about this time, by his earliest biographer, Cadwalader D. Colden, may be narrated as an amusing exhibition of a not uncommon popular absurdity. An unscrupulous, scientific quack, named Redheffer, had deluded the Philadel phians into the belief of his discovering a species of perpetual motion. He succeeded in a thorough mystification, it is said, of some very clever people, whose brains were entangled in his wheels and weights; for there is, at times, no more credulous person than your man of science, who spins a web for his own imprisonment. Ingenious theories were not wanting to account for the prodigious working of the machine. Some recondite speculations, well-fortified with figures, will be found in the old "Port Folio." The apparatus was brought to New York, and set up to the admiration of the gaping crowd, who dropped their dollar at the door into the pockets of the showman, capacious as their own credulity. Fulton was, at length, induced to join the crowd. The machine was in an isolated house in the suburbs of the city. Fulton had hardly entered, when his practiced ear detected an irregular crank motion. The whole secret was betrayed to him in this whisper. Presently entering into conversation with the showman, he denounced the whole thing as an imposition; the usual amount of virtuous indignation was expended by the exhibitor; the visitors became excited; Fulton was resolute. He proposed an inspection behind the scenes, promising to make good any damage in the process. A few thin strips of lath were plucked away, apparently used only to steady the machinery, which betrayed a string of catgut, connecting the work with something beyond. Following this clue through an upper room, there was found, at its termination, the secret of the wondrous effect, in "a a poor, old man, with an immense beard, and all the appearances of hav ing suffered a long imprisonment, seated on a stool, quite unconscious of what had happened below, with one hand gnawing a crust, and with the other turning a crank." The mob demolished the machine, and Redheffer disappeared with his vaporous delusion. In these later years of his life, for unhappily he was now approaching its close, Fulton was mainly employed at New York, in building and equipping, under the supervision of Government, his famous cannon-proof steam-frigate, named after him, The Fulton, and in perfecting his favorite devices of submarine sailing vessels, in connection with the torpedo warfare. The steamfrigate was launched in October, 1814, but its projector did not live to witness its completion. He may be said, indeed, to have been a martyr to the undertaking. His constitution, not of the strongest, was exposed to a severe test in mid-winter, in January, 1815, in a passage across the Hudson, amidst the ice in an open boat. He was returning from the Legislature of New Jersey, at Trenton, whither he had gone to give evidence in the protracted steamboat controversy. He was taken ill on his return home, and before he was fully restored, ventured out to superintend some work on the exposed deck of the Fulton. This brought on increased illness, which speedily terminated in death, Febru ary 24th, 1815. * Colden's Life of Fulton, p. 219. A NNE-MARIE LOUISE NECK | ters. So high did he stand both in ER was born at Paris in 1766. popular and courtly estimation, that, Both her parents were remarkable per- shortly after the accession of Louis sons. Her father, James Necker, a XVI., he was appointed, although a simple citizen of Geneva, began life as foreigner, Comptroller-General of the clerk in a banker's office in Paris, Finances. He held this post for five speedily became a partner, and by years, till 1781; and contrived not skill, diligence, sound judgment, and only to effect considerable savings, by strict integrity, contrived in the course the suppression of upwards of six hunof twenty years to amass a large for dred sinecures, but also in some small tune and to acquire a lofty reputation. degree to mitigate and equalize taxaWhile accumulating wealth, however, tion, and to introduce a system of orhe neglected neither literature nor so- der and regularity into the public ac ciety. He politicaltudied both philosophy and counts to which they had long been political economy; he associated with the Encyclopedists and eminent literati of the time; his house was frequented by some of the most remarkable men who at that period made the Parisian salons the most brilliant in Europe; and he found time, by various writings on financial matters, to create a high and general estimation of his talents as an administrator and economist. His management of the affairs of the French East India Company raised his fame in the highest political circles, while, as accredited agent for the Republic of Geneva at the court of Versailles, he obtained the esteem and confidence both of the sovereign and the minis strangers. As proved by his celebrated Compte rendu, which, though vehemently attacked, was never successfully impugned, he found a deficit of thirty-four millions when he entered office, and left a surplus of ten millions when he quitted it,-notwithstanding the heavy expenses of the American war. In the course of his administration, however, Necker had of course made many enemies, who busied themselves in undermining his position at court, and overruled the weak and vacillating attachment of the king. Necker found that his most careful and valuable plans were canvassed and spoiled by his enemies in the council, |