to pleasantly submit to the exasperating delays and interferences with his work which arose from the methods of doing public business, and it is no more than the simple truth to say that during the preceding years the relations between Ericsson and the officials of the Navy Department had often become seriously strained, and they were seldom in cordial accord regarding the various questions which arose in connection with his public work.

With the demonstration made by the “Monitor,” however, the attitude of the public changed in a moment, and Ericsson was hailed on every hand as a public benefactor.  He received the thanks of Congress on March 28, 1862, and of the Legislature of the State of New York a little later.  Besides these, he was the recipient of numbers of memorials and mementoes, and of such praise in every form as might well have disturbed the equilibrium of a mind less well balanced.  In all this change of public opinion, the one thing which must have given him the deepest satisfaction was the change in the attitude of the naval authorities at Washington.  He was now considered as one whose ideas had demonstrated their right to serious and respectful attention, and a large fleet of vessels of the monitor type was ordered, similar to but larger than the prototype, and containing such minor changes as experience had suggested.  Yet even this was not accomplished without objection.  The officers of the navy were accustomed to the old type of wooden ship, and were slow to realize that naval war was, after all, an engineering problem, and that the ideas of the engineer must now be substituted for those which had been sanctified by long ages of past experience.  Still, the demonstration was too convincing to admit of serious question, and Ericsson and his associates in business were busily occupied during the remainder of the war in the design and construction of a numerous fleet of vessels of the monitor type.

Ericsson’s work during this period was enormous.  One design followed another in quick succession, while work of supervision and inspection and cares of a business nature all combined to make a burden which would have broken down a nature less determined and self-centred, and a body less inured to physical endurance and sustained nervous tension.

This prodigious load was not so much but that he found time to devote to the needs of other nations, and in 1862 he offered to construct for the Chilian government a monitor similar to those under construction for the United States, while later a similar offer was made to the Peruvian Government.  With the close of the Civil War Ericsson found still further time to devote to the introduction of this type of vessel into foreign navies, and a considerable part of his time seems to have been occupied with projects of this character, and more particularly with the question of the naval defence of his native land.  As regards the introduction of warships of the monitor type,