THE

ANALECTIC MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1817.

ART. I.-The Life of ROBERT FULTON, by his friend Cadwallader D. Colden. Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York. 1817. p. 371.

SOME one has observed, that mankind respect most and reward best, first those who murder and destroy them; secondly those who blind their understandings and cheat them; thirdly those who amuse them; last and least, those who endeavour to instruct and benefit them. In this class must be included authors and projectors; appellations that associate in their common acceptation, a portion of pity mixed with contempt.

Fulton ranked among the class last enumerated. His life was spent in devising the means of promoting the comfort and facilitating the intercourse of civilized life, and counteracting the evils of modern warfare. In proportion as he succeeded in demonstrating the practicability of his plans, he gave birth to obloquy and opposition. During the last years of his life his plans of public utility were greatly interrupted. He was forced to protect himself against men who speculated on his ideas: who were ready to deprive him of the honour, and to rob him of the profit of those inventions, by which his fellow citizens had been so much benefitted, and the reputation of his native country so much promoted.*

The present life of Fulton by Mr. Colden, is a plain, unaffected, unexaggerated account of what Fulton did and proposed to do for the benefit of his country and of mankind. It is neither prolix nor pompous; it does not offend by any over-strained panegyric, nor does it omit any part of Fulton's character, performances, or projects, that the public is interested in knowing. It is creditable to the very useful man concerning whom it is written, and to the biographer who writes it.

Robert Fulton, the subject of the present memoir, was the third of five children born of Robert and Mary Fulton. His father was of Kilkenny in Ireland; his mother was also of Irish descent. There are two countries in Europe, insignificant in point of popula

* The Chevalier Cadet de Gassicourt in a letter from Paris, January, 1817, proposing the substitution of the hydraulic-press to the force of steam, as a moving power to propel vessels, observes that "Steam Boats offer such great advantages to commerce, that England, France, and America with one accord proclaim the glory of Fulton." Month. Mag. May, 1817 p. 299.

tion and extent, that have furnished more examples of brilliant intellect, and useful knowledge, than nations of ten times their size and number. Ireland may challenge Europe for her proportion of men of genius, and the petty territory of Sweden has done more towards chemistry and natural history than any single nation in that quarter of the globe. It is not easy to defend the practice of characterising masses of men by a few individual instances, but it is hardly possible to with-hold our assent to permanent traits of character ascribable to nations, and it is gratifying to ascribe them when they are so honourable.

Fulton was born at little Britain in Lancaster county, Pennsy vania, in the year 1765: his father died in 1768, leaving little patrimony to his children. Robert Fulton the son, was attached in his youth to drawing and painting, and from his earnings and savings in this profession between his 17th and 22nd year, he purchased a small farm in Washington county, Pennsylvania, on which he settled his mother; who remained on it till her death in 1799, thirteen years. Fulton, therefore, commenced his career of life, by sacrificing the profits of his earliest exertions to make his surviving parent comfortable and independent. This was a commencement of excellent augury.

Probably, much of Fulton's success in his plans, depended on the ease with which he was able to express his ideas on paper by means of his pencil. Drawing, is the first acquirement necessary to that most useful and important character, a civil engineer: next to that is a perfect readiness in all arithmetical and mathematical calculations, particularly of the higher mathematics; next chemistry and natural philosophy. It is thus that Smeaton, and Watt, and Woolfe and Clegg, have been made in England; men, who when weighed in the balances of public utility against the monarch and the ministry, the peers and the commons of the parliament of that country, would cause the scale of the latter to kick the beam. It is not too much to say that the duke of Bridgewater, Boulton and Watt, Wedgewood, and Bentley, and sir Richard Arkwright have been worth to their native country, a hundred millions of pounds sterling. We shall have no such men here, till more time is allowed to education, than the superficial manners of the present day deems necessary in this country-till boys are permitted to remain boys until nature and education shall make men of them. It was by pursuing with steady attention his mathematical studies which he found absolutely necessary to his success, and by his acquirements in physical science, that Fulton himself was enabled to bring his native talents so usefully into play: for genius uneducated and unimproved, is often a nuisance, and seldom of value, either to its owner, or mankind.

Soon after he had settled his mother, he set out for England to study painting under Mr. West. But while in that country, in 1793, he became acquainted with the duke of Bridgewater and lord Stanhope, and turned his attention toward the construction and the use of navigable canals; a scheme, to which the duke of Bridge

water in particular had dedicated the whole of his ample fortune, and useful life.

Of all the means of facilitating internal commerce and mutual intercourse between the inhabitants of the same country, canals are the most efficient: and where heavy materials are to be transported from one place to another, such as ores, iron machinery, limestone, coals, lumber, and articles of that description, they become indispensable to any high degree of national prosperity. But it is very doubtful whether the mere farming produce of a district, would pay interest for the capital expended in a canal, after supporting the expense of keeping it in good order. In this country, however, there are other motives for canals, than merely the facilitating of intercourse in time of peace. A series of canals parallel to our sea coast or nearly so, is a war-measure of the very last importance to our interest. Yet the easy, obvious communication between the Chesapeake and the Delaware, so often urged, so long meditated, so manifestly useful in case of an enemy's fleet scouring our coasts, is hardly talked of. The projected canal in New-York state, which if it ever be finished will owe its existence to De Witt Clinton, may be considered in the same point of view; and will be so considered by all who are aware of the enormous expense incurred during the last war in the transportation of heavy articles to the New-York frontier. A numerous population, great internal commerce, and canals, go hand in hand: they mutually sustain each other. China and Holland are examples, and Great Britain has wisely followed these examples.* Readers are not aware that even in Great Britain the internal commerce of the country, independent of mere agriculture, is at least eight times the amount of the external, even calculating this last at the enormous amount of 1816, viz. about fifty-one million sterling; but if the growth and manufacture of agricultural articles be taken into account it is far more. In fact, ex

ternal commerce is greatly over-rated. What is the profit upon an export of fifty million at fifteen per cent.? seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. What is this compared to forty-five million of cultivated acres in England producing the average value of fifteen bushels of wheat per acre? The boast of external commerce, is annihilated at once by considerations such as these. One day of harvest sunshine instead of rain, would produce an additional value, beyond the whole gross amount of export or of import in Great Britain.

But if canals are valuable in the nations of Europe, where the extent of territory is so small, that every part of a kingdom may be considered practically as under the same climate, and bearing similar articles of territorial produce, how much more valuable will they become in this country, where the range of climate almost supercedes the necessity of foreign commerce.

* One of the earliest, and it is believed one of the most efficacious advocates of the canal system is Mr. Brooke, author of that singular novel the "Fool of Quality," wherein Mr. Meekly is brought forward in favour of inland navigation.

Fulton, who was in all his proposals a practical man, recommended small canals and narrow boats. He was aware that canals of this description, easily made, cheaply made, and speedily made, were best calculated to afford an early interest for the capital ex pended in constructing them. In Pennsylvania, what a lesson has the extravagance of our turnpike roads afforded: monied men sicken at the sight of a subscription list to a new turnpike; while the injudicious waste of money on the Schuylkill canal, and the obstacles to the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, appear almost insuperable bars to their completion. This latter canal, it is the duty of the federal government to make at the expense of the United States; for so complete a measure of defensive warfare can hardly be imagined. But whenever this measure shall come to be discussed in congress, the verbose objections, the ignorance that will be displayed upon the question, and the protracted debates upon a proposal of the first necessity, and in itself too obviously expedient to require a moment's discussion, will probably cost the nation half as much as it would require to complete the canal from beginning to end.

Fulton's treatise on canals ought to be republished. The treatises on this subject published in England, are more calculated for civil engineers than for the public at large. What we want here is something to shew that canals can be constructed cheaply and profitably. It is really dreadful on a market day in the city of Philadelphia, to see the capital expended in teams, and to consider the prodigious expense of maintaining them, when nine-tenths of the labour might be performed by canals, or by steam waggons.*

Fulton took out a patent for his peculiar improvements in the construction of canals, in England; and he went over to France for the purpose of doing the same there. While he was there, he wrote several letters, apparently intended for publication, on subjects of political economy, in favour of free trade, and showing the effect in society, comparatively, of the class of men who are producers, and those who are merely idlers; the drones of the hive, fruges consumere nati. The details of his reflections we know not, for the compositions do not appear to have been published. The same idea, however, has been lately taken up by a late French author, who considers society divided as into two grand periods: the ancient, wherein each nation sought to enrich and aggrandize itself at the expense of its neighbour, by invasion and plunder. Under this system (which was that of Greece and Rome, so much and so foolishly vaunted) the idlers-the non-producers-monarchs, nobles, the military and the priesthood, were numerous: industry was confined to slaves, or to the lowest classes of society, and deemed dishonourable, and disreputable. War was the favourite and fashionable pursuit; and warriors were ranked among their di

There is a coal-mine, four miles from Halifax in Yorkshire (England). A waggon containing a steam-engine, drags after it on an iron rail-way, at the rate of four miles per hour, twenty-two waggons, each containing three tons of coals.

†M. Compte in his Censeur. Essay the first.

mities. In such a state of things virtue might well signify both valour, and good conduct. Under this system, civilization could not permanently advance; the rights of men and of citizens were such only as a proud and warlike class of society, supported by a priesthood, might indulgently allow; the properties and persons of weaker nations were seized on and converted to the use of the conquerors; and the vanquished were made slaves.

Such are the glorious times of Greece and Rome, whose detestable morals, manners, and maxims, have been the theme of ignorant panegyric for ages past. This was the period of incivilized society. The modern system of civilization proceeds on the endeavour to make every member of society a producer, by the habitual exertion of some useful kind of industry: to gain by the prosperity, not by the misery of neighbouring nations: by barter, and not by plunder: to stimulate industry abroad for this purpose, as well as at home: to lessen as far as possible the number of drones in the hive, to diminish the class of idlers and non-producers: to diminish also as far as possible, all necessity for naval and military systems: and generally, to abolish as far as possible, all orders of men, who have no means of living but on the industry of the producing class.

It is upon this ground in particular, that the French author in question, finds fault with Buonaparte and his system; who brought back the ancient maxims of war, rapine and plunder; who filled the country with swarms of idle soldiery; and established as a permanent tax upon the people, a devouring military aristocracy; an imperial court, an imperial army, an imperial priesthood, imperial musicians, dramatists, historians, orators, poets, and panegyrists, whose occupation was to varnish over the existing order of things, and to worship, with blasphemous adulation, the powers that be. It was indeed a discovery in this country of far more importance at the time, than any even of Fulton's, that it was possible for a people to govern themselves and be happy without bishops, without nobles, without kings.'

By what arguments Fulton supported his favourite doctrine of free trade, we know not, till his works shall be published, if this should ever be: but in the present state of things, it should seem as if we were compelled in this country into the measure of protecting regulations, in self defence against those nations whose conduct calls upon us to mete unto others, the measures dealt out to ourselves. The despotic conduct of Great Britain upon the ocean, and the high tone assumed by her late negociators in Europe upon that subject, may give rise to another armed neutrality, with Russia as before at the head of it: there is good reason to believe that the measure is even now meditated; but whenever free trade is adopted as a maxim among the European powers, or whenever it may be declared as a position of the law of nature and nations that the flag shall protect the property, it will be a theoretical declaration only, as it was under the former armed neutrality: the strongest naval power will use that power in time of war against the neutrals