ricans.

The people who wished our country to belong to England were called
Tories.

Those who wished America to be free were called Whigs.

The Whig boys often fought the Tory boys on the soldiers' camp
ground.

The soldiers grew tired of this.

They stretched a rope to keep the boys out.

Robert drew a picture in which the Whigs crossed the rope and
whipped the Tories.

The boys all thought it a good picture.

So they tried to make it real.

They became so troublesome that the town officers had to interfere.

But Robert was all this time fast growing up.

He had to choose some way of taking care of himself.

He was more fond of his pencil and brush than of anything else.

Near his home, had lived a celebrated painter.

His name was Benjamin West.

Benjamin West's father and Robert's father had been great friends.

Mr. West had become famous.

He now lived in England.

Robert thought he would like to be an artist, too.

So he left his home and went to the city of Philadelphia.

He knew that it meant hard work.

He was industrious and pains-taking.

He had many friends.

Benjamin Franklin was one of his friends.

Soon he did very nice work.

In the four years after he was seventeen, he not only took care of
himself, but sent money to his mother and sisters.

He spent his twenty-first birthday at home.

He had then earned enough money to buy a small farm for his mother.

For this farm he paid four hundred dollars.

He helped his family to get nicely settled in their new home.

Then he went back to Philadelphia.

At this time Mr. Fulton, as we must now call him, was not well.

Partly for this reason he decided to take a voyage to Europe.

He carried letters from many well-known Americans.

He found friends in Europe.

Benjamin West was kind to him there.

[Illustration: A CANAL SCENE.]

He soon had plenty of work to do.

One of his friends was an English gentleman, who was called the Earl
of Stanhope.

The Earl was much interested in canals.

Canals, you probably know, are artificial rivers.

Boats are drawn on them by horses, which walk along a path on the
shore.

The path is called the tow-path.

Railways were almost unknown then.

So canals were very useful in carrying goods across the country.

They had been in use in Europe and Asia for hundreds of years.

Mr. Fulton invented a double inclined-plane.

This could be used in raising and lowering canal boa