uin of their business, attacked the vessel at
night and utterly destroyed it. Papin narrowly escaped with his life,
and fled to England, where he endured great hardships and poverty, and
all traces of him were soon lost, so that it is uncertain in what
country he finally died or where he was buried.

This remarkable man was driven out of France on account of his
Protestant faith, and found a refuge in Germany; here he was again
persecuted on account of the injury that ignorant and jealous people
believed his inventions would inflict upon the industries of the
country; and when the climax of steam engines for pumping water and
propelling ships was reached, the enlightened government of the period
"found serious obstacles" in the way of granting him protection, and,
without condescending to state what those "objections" were, secretly
instigated the mob to make an end of the trouble. It is another
instance, unfortunately too often repeated in history, of the mischief
men dressed up in a little brief authority can work upon their
generation. If Papin had been permitted to navigate the Weser with his
ship, and to carry it to London, as was his intention, it is possible
that we should have had steamboats one hundred years earlier than they
were given to us by Fulton. The plan proposed by Papin was highly
impracticable; but a knowledge of what Savery had done in the way of
steam machinery, aided by the shrewd suggestions of Leibnitz, combined
with the practical assistance of Englishmen, would, no doubt, have
enabled him to improve upon his invention until it had obtained
sufficient credit to be secure against the misfortune of being
totally forgotten. After the lapse of 100 years from the date of
Papin's invention, when the first steamboat was put upon the river
Rhine, the vessel was fired into by concealed marksmen on shore, and
navigation was more dangerous than it is now on the upper waters of
the Missouri in times of Indian hostility. It was only after
stationing troops along the banks of the river to protect the boatmen
that the government, fortunately more enlightened than in the days of
Leibnitz, was able to establish steam navigation on a secure footing.

I have thought it worth while to make this contribution to the history
of steam navigation, particularly as I have been able to authenticate
a portion of it by reference to original documents.

Columbia College, New York city, January, 1877.

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