ions lie dormant should my country at any time have need of them.
Were you to grant me an annuity of twenty thousand pounds, I would
sacrifice all to the safety and independence of my country."

In 1806, Mr. Fulton returned to New York, and in the same year he
married Miss Harriet Livingston, a niece of Chancellor Livingston, by
whom he had four children. He offered his torpedo to the General
Government, but the trial to which it was subjected by the Navy
Department was unsuccessful for him, and the Government declined to
purchase the invention.

But it was not as the inventor of engines of destruction that Robert
Fulton was to achieve fame. A still nobler triumph was reserved for
him--one which was to bring joy instead of sorrow to the world. From the
time that Fulton had designed the paddle-wheels for his fishing-boat, he
had never ceased to give his attention to the subject of propelling
vessels by machinery, and after his acquaintance with Watt, he was more
than ever convinced that the steam-engine could, under proper
circumstances, be made to furnish the motive power.

Several eminent and ingenious men, previous to this, had proposed to
propel vessels by steam power, among whom were Dr. Papin, of France,
Savery, the Marquis of Worcester, and Dr. John Allen, of London, in
1726. In 1786, Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, and about the same time
Dr. Franklin, proposed to accomplish this result by forcing a quantity
of water, by means of steam power, through an opening made for that
purpose in the stern of the hull of the boat.

In 1737, Jonathan Hulls issued a pamphlet proposing to construct a boat
to be moved by steam power, for the purpose of towing vessels out of
harbors against tide and winds. In his plan the paddle-wheel was used,
and was secured to a frame placed far out over the stern of the boat. It
was given this position by the inventor because water fowls propelled
themselves by pushing their feet behind them.

In 1787, Mr. James Rumsey, of Shepherdstown, Virginia, constructed and
navigated the first steamboat in actual use. His boat was eighty feet in
length, and was propelled by means of a vertical pump in the middle of
the vessel, by which the water was drawn in at the bow and expelled at
the stern through a horizontal trough in her hull. The engine weighed
about one third of a ton, and the boat had a capacity of about three
tons burthen. When thus laden, a speed of about four miles an hour could
be at