forever, and he resolved to ally himself to the new power before being overcome by it.  Besides, he protests, that in no enterprise of his life has his chief object been the gain of money.  Being in the business of carrying passengers, he desired to carry them in the best manner, and by the best means.  Business has ever been to him a kind of game, and his ruling motive was and is, to play it so as to win. To carry his point, that has been the motive of his business career; but then his point has generally been one which, being carried, brought money with it.

At that day, passengers to Philadelphia were conveyed by steamboat from New York to New Brunswick, where they remained all night, and the next morning took the stage for Trenton, whence they were carried to Philadelphia by steamboat.  The proprietor of part of this line was the once celebrated Thomas Gibbons, a man of enterprise and capital.  It was in his service that Captain Vanderbilt spent the next twelve years of his life, commanding the steamer plying between New York and New Brunswick.  The hotel at New Brunswick, where the passengers passed the night, which had never paid expenses, was let to him rent free, and under the efficient management of Mrs. Vanderbilt, it became profitable, and afforded the passengers such excellent entertainment as to enhance the popularity of the line.

In engaging with Mr. Gibbons, Captain Vanderbilt soon found that he had put his head into a hornet’s nest.  The State of New York had granted to Fulton and Livingston the exclusive right of running steamboats in New York waters.  Thomas Gibbons, believing the grant unconstitutional, as it was afterwards declared by the Supreme Court, ran his boats in defiance of it, and thus involved himself in a long and fierce contest with the authorities of New York.  The brunt of this battle fell upon his new captain.  There was one period when for sixty successive days an attempt was made to arrest him; but the captain baffled every attempt.  Leaving his crew in New Jersey (for they also were liable to arrest), he would approach the New York wharf with a lady at the helm, while he managed the engine; and as soon as the boat was made fast he concealed himself in the depths of the vessel.  At the moment of starting, the officer (changed every day to avoid recognition) used to present himself and tap the wary captain on the shoulder.

“Let go the line,” was his usual reply to the summons.

The officer, fearing to be carried off to New Jersey, where a retaliatory act threatened him with the State’s prison, would jump ashore as for life; or, if carried off, would beg to be put ashore.  In this way, and in many others, the captain contrived to evade the law.  He fought the State of New York for seven years, until, in 1824, Chief Justice Marshall pronounced New York wrong and New Jersey right.  The opposition vainly attempted to buy him off by the offer of a larger boat.