This steamer was very defective, but still so great an improvement upon all that had preceded it, that Messrs. Fulton and Livingston determined to build one on a larger scale in the waters of New York, the right of navigating which by steam vessels had been secured by the latter as far back as 1798.  The law which granted this right had been continued from time to time through Mr. Livingston’s influence, and was finally amended so as to include Fulton within its provisions.  Having resolved to return home, Fulton set out as soon as possible, stopping in England on his return, to order an engine for his boat from Watt and Boulton.  He gave an exact description of the engine, which was built in strict accordance with his plan, but declined to state the use to which he intended putting it.

Very soon after his arrival in New York, he commenced building his first American boat, and finding that her cost would greatly exceed his estimate, he offered for sale a third interest in the monopoly of the navigation of the waters of New York, held by Livingston and himself, in order to raise money to build the boat, and thus lighten the burdens of himself and his partner, but he could find no one willing to risk money in such a scheme.  Indeed, steam navigation was universally regarded in America as a mere chimera, and Fulton and Livingston were ridiculed for their faith in it.  The bill granting the monopoly held by Livingston was regarded as so utterly absurd by the Legislature of New York, that that wise body could with difficulty be induced to consider it seriously.  Even among scientific men the project was considered impracticable.  A society in Rotterdam had, several years before Fulton’s return home, applied to the American Philosophical Society to be informed whether any and what improvements had been made in the construction of steam-engines in America.  A reply to this inquiry was prepared, at the request of the Society, by Mr. Benjamin H. Latrobe, a distinguished engineer.  The following extracts from this paper will show the reader how Fulton’s scheme was regarded by one who was confessedly one of the most brilliant engineers of his day, and who has since accomplished so much for the improvement of steam travel: 

During the general lassitude of mechanical exertion which succeeded the American Revolution, We utility of steam-engines appears to have been forgotten; but the subject afterward started into very general notice in a form in which it could not possibly be attended with success.  A sort of mania began to prevail, which, indeed, has not yet entirely subsided, for impelling boats by steam-engines.  Dr. Franklin proposed to force forward the boat by the immediate application of the steam upon the water.  Many attempts to simplify the working of the engine, and more to employ a means of dispensing with the beam in converting the libratory into a rotatory motion, were made.  For a short time, a passage-boat, rowed by a steam-engine,