Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land;
    All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

[Illustration:  “THE LOUD LAUGH ROSE AT MY EXPENSE”]

“As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the building yard while my boat was in progress, I have often loitered unknown near the idle groups of strangers gathered in little circles and heard various inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle.  The language was uniformly that of scorn, or sneer, or ridicule.  The loud laugh often rose at my expense; the dry jest; the wise calculation of losses and expenditures; the dull, but endless repetition of ‘the Fulton Folly.’  Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish cross my path.”

The boat which Fulton was building while the wiseacres wagged their heads and prophesied disaster, was named “The Clermont.”  She was 130 feet long, 18 feet wide, half-decked, and provided with a mast and sail.  In the undecked part were the boiler and engine, set in masonry.  The wheels were fifteen feet in diameter, with buckets four feet wide, dipping two feet into the water.

It was 1806 when Fulton came home to begin her construction.  Since his luckless experience with the French Institute he had tested a steamer on the Seine; failed to interest Napoleon; tried, without success, to get the British Government to adopt his torpedo; tried and failed again with the American Government at Washington.  Fulton’s thoughts seemed to have been riveted on his torpedo; but Livingston was confident of the future of the steamboat, and had had an engine built for it in England, which Fulton found lying on a wharf, freight unpaid, on his return from Europe.  The State of New York had meantime granted the two another monopoly of steam navigation, and gave them until 1807 to prove their ability and right.  The time, though brief, proved sufficient, and on the afternoon of August 7, 1807, the “Clermont” began her epoch-making voyage.  The distance to Albany—­150 miles—­she traversed in thirty-two hours, and the end of the passenger sloop traffic on the Hudson was begun.  Within a year steamboats were plying on the Raritan, the Delaware, and Lake Champlain, and the development and use of the new invention would have been more rapid than it was, save for the monopoly rights which had been granted to Livingston and Fulton.  They had the sole right to navigate by steam, the waters of New York.  Well and good.  But suppose the stream navigated touched both New York and New Jersey.  What then?  Would it be seriously asserted that a steamer owned by New Jersey citizens could not land passengers at a New York port?

Fulton and Livingston strove to protect their monopoly, and the two States were brought to the brink of war.  In the end the courts settled the difficulty by establishing the exclusive control of navigable waters by the Federal Government.