If this be so, why, then, indeed, what a bubble is reputation! How vain, and how idle, days and sleepless nights devoted to the service of one's Country! Admit this argument and you strip from the brow of the scholar his bay, and from those of the statesman and soldier their laurel. Why do you deck with chaplets the statue of the Father of his Country, if good, and good luck alone, be all that coinmends him our gratitude and love? A member of this House retorts " bad luck would have made Washington a traitor." Aye, but in whose estimation? Did the great and holy principles which produced and governed our Revolution depend for their righteousness and truths upon success, or defeat?
Would Washington, had he suffered as a rebel on the scaffold? Would Wash i no-ton have been regarded as a traitor by women; and Hancock, and Green, and Hamilton, by the crowd of patriots who encompassed him, partners of his trial and sharers of his patriotism? Was it good luck that impelled Columbus through discouragement, conspiracy and poverty, to persevere in his path of danger until this western world blessed his sight, and rewarded his energy and daring? Does the Gentleman emulate the glorv of the third kino- of Rome, Tullus Hostilius, and would he erect in our land a temple of fortune? It cannot be that he would seriously promulgate such views; that he would take from human renown all that gives it dignity and worth, by making it all depend less on the virtue of the individual than on his luck!" I believe an appropriation was voted to his family, but the amount I never learned.
As in all probability ship building would be dull, and everything about New York seemed to be of a warlike character, I concluded to enter the U. S. Navy for the steam frigate. It occurred to me, that I might sign the shipping papers, and at the same time get permission from the recruiting officer to work on her until she was launched. Thus I should be drawing pay from the yard and from the government at the same time, as it would probably take a month to get her ready for launching. 1 went to the rendezvous, made mv wishes known to the recruiting officer Mr. Edward Barnwell, who was much of a gentleman, and subsequently a good friend to me.
He immediately complied with my request, and I entered as first carpenter's mate. He gave me two months advance, requiring no other security than the endorsement on my indentures; ulso a written permission to continue working on the frigate until my services should be required in the naval service. Besides this monstrous steam battery, we constructed a torpedo boat for the purpose of destroying enemy's ships at anchor. She was ninety-six feet long, thirty feet beam, and six feet deep in the ocean. Her shape was very much like the bowls of two spoons put close together. At the smallest end a place was fixed on the outside for the torpedo or vessel containing the powder (about 2001b) and communicating with this vessel of powder were three common gun locks, with wires leading inside the boat and well covered with cloth to prevent water from coming inside, At the other end was a submerged wheel about six feet in diameter, to which a crank was fixed and attached to a shaft seventy-five feet in length, and running along in the boat, about two feet from the bottom.
Holes, two inches in diameter, were bored through the shaft four feet apart, and through these were bars six feet long projecting three feet on each side; fifteen men were to be seated on each side the shaft and every man with a bar in his hand. It was calculated that the horizontal movement of this shaft would propel the boat rapidly through the water. The submerging process was arranged by copper tubes and buoys upon the surface of the water calculated and arranged so as to admit a sufficient amount of pure air, and also to graduate the depth of the machine; as it was intended to be placed under a ship bottom at night in such a position as toexplod
7 1 the powder, and at the same time to make an immediate retreat. This infernal machine was never wanted, peace having taken place before she was launched, and while speaking of Mr. Fulton, perhaps it may not be out of place here, to remark, that the " commencement of hostilities between the U. S. and Great Britain, gave new activity to Mr. Fulton's thoughts on sub-marine warfare. The poiver of his machines, the officers of the British navy had learned from what he had done in England, and it is certain that they approached our shores with no little caution. This was manifested by their solicitude to know where Fulton was, and what he was about, whenever they had an opportunity of making inquirles.