RETURN TO AMERICA
Summary of the British negotiations. America used as a threat.
Offer of neutrality. Fulton’s review of the past and plans for
the future. Appeal to Jefferson. Departure for home.
One’s sympathy goes unreservedly to Fulton. He was at this time almost
forty-one years old. He had fought his battle of life alone, without
money, and with only such friends as he had attracted to himself from
time to time. He had tried several avenues that might lead to success,
but he found that one after the other came to an end in desert fields.
To his latest effort he had devoted nine years. It had been the most
promising of them all. It had brought him in contact with many powerful
people, it had provided action that he sought, it was lighted with the
bright hopes for success, and for the past two years had furnished a
comfortable living, the first of any of his efforts so to do. But now
this avenue like the others had reached an end. This disappointment must
have exceeded all his previous disappointments. He had abandoned art,
small canal construction and his excavating devices at a time when no
one of them offered any great encouragement. In none of his earlier
efforts had he attained a good foothold. In his submarine he had buried
more time and energy than he had in any of his other lines: in fact, he
had spent nearly one half of the years since leaving home in its study.
Whatever estimate he had placed on art and his various engineering
projects, this time he knew that he was right. There was no doubt in his
own mind as to the correctness of his reasoning and the workable
qualities of his invention. All the harder it must have been, when he
realized that he could not make men see it as he did, other than his two
unnamed friends in America and his one friend in England, the Earl of
Stanhope.
His emotions on sailing from England were of a distinctly different
character from those he felt when leaving France. In the latter country
he had been rejected with contumely, the first real shock that he had
experienced. He departed from France sore and angry, as has been shown.
In England he had been treated quite otherwise. Throughout his stay of
twenty-eight months he had been shown every courtesy. He had the entrée
to government offices and enjoyed the confidence of the highest
officials, including Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville, in turn prime
ministers. The disagreement with the British Government was on financial
grounds. During his period of work he had received a generous salary in
addition to reimbursement for all his expenses. Development of events
made Fulton no longer necessary to the Government on the one hand, while
on the other his steamboat arrangement with Chancellor Livingston was
forcing Fulton’s return to America. Both parties were ready to end the
contractual relation. The British Government, not having received any
direct benefit from Fulton’s ideas, except the indirect one that he had
been kept from going over to the enemy, naturally sought a means of
terminating the contract without further payment. Fulton, equally
naturally, sought substantial pecuniary reward. He was past the age when
men have usually made their mark, and had accomplished nothing. His
steamboat plans were as yet on paper with nothing more definite than
hope. He was in debt to his “two friends in America,” a debt that he
could repay by no other means in sight than through his submarine
contract. He, therefore, made the best fight he could, single-handed, to
obtain a favorable settlement.
It is interesting to follow the working of Fulton’s mind in these final
negotiations for a satisfactory adjustment, as shown by his own letters.
In his original contract of May, 1804, he made no reservation, but
placed his ideas wholly and exclusively at the disposition of the
British Government. It does not appear that he gave any thought to the
use of his device by the United States. This is not remarkable. He had
left America when he was but twenty-one years old. At that time there
was no constitution, no federal government, nothing but a confederacy of
colonies disturbed by strong jealousies of each other. He had lived
abroad for twenty years, including the formative period of a man’s
character. His sole tie with his native country, his mother, had been
cut by her death. The Barlows were quite as much French as American.
There was nothing except the friendship and personality of Livingston to
rouse in him a sense of patriotism, or lead him to feel the existence of
a national spirit in a united country in America.
The first reference to the use of his submarine by America appears in
his letter to Lord Castlereagh, dated “London December 13th, 1805,”
given on pages 104–8. When this letter was written, it was becoming
clear to Fulton that the British Government might refuse to make payment
under the contract, and that he would have to use some sort of force to
compel a compliance with the terms. The only force that he could employ
would be a threat to give his secret to some other power. France was now
quite out of the question, and there was no one power in Europe that
could serve as a means to scare. The United States, now become a nation,
was the only hope. In his letter to Lord Castlereagh he advances the
ingenious solution that he receive a substantial cash payment and an
annuity, the latter to continue only so long as the secret was kept
inviolate by him. He concludes by diplomatically hinting that the only
government to whom he would be likely to explain his invention would be
his own. In the paper that he read to the Arbitrators he makes a
distinct threat that, unless a satisfactory offer be made, he will not
only give his secret to America but publish it to the whole world,
although he modified this by stating that he had “no desire to introduce
my Engines into practice for the benefit of any other Nation.” (page
126.)
Although refused by the Arbitrators, he made a final effort with Lord
Grenville, on September 3rd, to obtain his pecuniary award, by again
offering what he called his “neutrality.” (pages 137–8.)
But the best exposition of Fulton’s position is given by himself in the
concluding pages of his Notes, this part being written after his letters
to and audience of Lord Grenville on September 3rd. This quotation was
his final word:
“I have now said sufficient of this System to enable any ingenious man
to make and arrange the Engines and any maritime nation to carry the
whole into effect. If I live it is my intention to give this system to
the public engraved with every necessary detail and I have made these
sketches and this loose description which is litte more than a sketch
of my studies on this Subject. In order that they may not be lost to
my country and mankind in case of any accident to me.
The prosecution of this system will put maritime nations on equal
means of offensive war, will give them equal means of distressing each
others commerce or destroying their Ships of war and consequently will
produce the liberty of the Seas. What I mean By the liberty of the
seas, is that all Vessels of all nations should carry any kind of
Cargo to any port of any and every nation whever (wherever?) the
owners thought proper to Send her if In such port she could not
dispose of her cargo or found a duty equal to a prohibition then let
her go elsewhere, unmolested for the perfect liberty of trade is the
real interest of all mankind. Under such a system Infinate stupid
causes of war will be done away, and the genius and millions which are
now Expended on wars, will then be directed to useful enterprises—
With such immense and humain objects In View and which has been the
great Stimules to my prosecuting of this subject, It may be necessary
to give a reason for offering to abandon these inventions to the
British government to use or not as they might think proper.
My first reason is that my country does not at present seem to require
such engines And although I had written to Mr. Jefferson twice on the
progress I had made and the final happy consequences of such a system
I never had an answer from him nor do I know that I shall have the
least encouragement in America to systematize these plans for the use
of the Country.
Second, Untill my country feels the importance of these engines and
seeing the power which they possess to give liberty to the seas, and
will unite with me in introducing them effectually into the world, and
considering the immense advantages which America would gain from a
perfect liberty of the seas, and would make my friends a reasonable
compensation for the Sums they have advanced to enable me to prosecute
my experiments, Untill my (“country,” undoubtedly omitted) sees such
advantages and does such things It is right that I Should do
everything in my power for the interest of such friends and even to
guard my own Interest Will any American or liberal minded man call
such actions sorded and wish me to abandon years of Industry to the
public good while neither he nor the government have offered one
Shilling to promote so glorious an enterprise?
Third.
As my country has not immediate use for such engines and the
prosecution of my system may now be considered on the broad scale of
general good It is no abandonment of my plan to take some years to
reflect on it and give give it to the world with every demonstration
of probable success.
Fourth.
As I am bound in honor to Mr. Livingston to put my steam boat in
practice and such an engine is of more immediate use to my country
than submarine navigation I wish to devote some years to it and Should
the British Government allow me an annuity I Should not only do
Justice to my friends but it would enable me to carry my steam Boat
and other plans into effect for the good of my country. It is
therefore for this reason I have offered England my neutrality for the
present and when I proposed an annuity it was only to continue for so
long as my engines were not used by france or any other nation against
England, this is doing justice to all parties and leaving me at
liberty to abandon the annuity whenever my friends and I might think
proper, to introduce the engines into practice.
It never has been my intention to hide these inventions from the world
on any consideration on the contrary it ever has been my intention to
make them public as soon as consistent with Strict justice to all with
whome I am concerned.
For myself I have ever considered the interest of America, free
commerce the interest of mankind the magnitude of the objective view
and the rational reputation connected with it superior to all
calculations of a pecuniary Mind
Robert Fulton”
It will be seen that Fulton made two appeals to the President at
Washington, undoubtedly when his negotiations for a final settlement
with the British Government were beginning to take a discouraging turn.
But Mr. Jefferson apparently never even acknowledged his letters.
Scorned by France, played with and then rejected by England, ignored by
America, Fulton with weary heart and disappointed spirit set out in
October, 1806, on the return to his own country, that he had left, with
only forty guineas in his pocket, but radiant with youth’s hopes, twenty
years before. He still had hope, and his courage had never failed him.
Now, at last, he was to win his reward, in the way most dear to him, by
receiving recognition of his talents. Though he had but the short space
of nine years more to live, nevertheless, before they were completed he
was to achieve everlasting fame through his steamboat “Clermont.”
His submarine plans he had left in England. He dismissed them from
further consideration in the excitement of his other success. Then came
his death, and his plans lay dormant. Others were to work over the same
idea and bring it after many trials to perfection, until finally after
an interval of more than one hundred years, it was to become, as Fulton
foresaw, a great offensive force. It was then to be used, but not as he
could have imagined, against the three countries, jointly, that he
served and loved in turn.