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ILLNESS-DEATH.

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amid a vast concourse of spectators, who had assembled to witness the launch.

In February of the following year, (1815,) Fulton visited Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, as a witness, on the petition of John R. Livingston, to the Legislature, to rescind a law previously passed, which prevented a steamboat owned by him from making her accustomed trips between New York and New Jersey.

Whilst at Trenton, his attendance on the legislature, and exposure to exceedingly inclement weather, induced a cold, which a natural predisposition rendered more susceptible, by two recent attacks of a similar character, soon fixed upon the lungs. An anxiety to return to his family and the multitudinous occupations that engrossed his thoughts, induced him to set out for New York at a time when prudence dictated a careful confinement to his apartment, and a rigid observance of medical regimen.

On reaching Paulus Hook, the Hudson was found partly closed with ice, and a detention of some hours occurred in procuring a boat to cross the river, which Fulton spent in visiting the works of Brown & Co., and examining the boats which were undergoing repairs preparatory to their use the following season. After reaching that part of the river which was frozen over, he left the boat in company with his friends, John R. Livingston, Sampson and Emmet, to cross over the ice on foot. They had not proceeded far before Mr. Emmet fell through the ice, and was placed in a situation of great peril. Fulton in attempting his rescue became quite wet, and when he reached his house, his cold had increased to such an extent he was scarcely able to articulate

Confinement to his bed for two or three days, so moderated the intensity of the symptoms under which he was laboring, that he ventured to visit the Paulus Hook works, to inspect the steam frigate, about which he was particularly anxious. This. unfortunate visit lighted up anew all the symptoms of the disease with an increased violence, which conjoined to the debility occasioned by his recent prostration, foiled all the skill of his medical advisers, and rapidly terminated in death.

The distinguished Dr. Hosack, who was called to render his aid late in the disease, says: "A renewal of the inflammation of his lungs took place, followed by a large and copious expectoration, partly purulent and in part sanguineous; partial relief was obtained, and some faint prospect of recovery appeared, but about six days before his death, the inflammation transferred itself from the windpipe and lungs to the external parts of the neck and lower jaw; a tumor took place, apparently of the right parotid gland, exhibiting the circumscribed appearance of mumps, but it soon diffused itself, involving all the integuments extending from that gland to the clavicle, in a high degree of erysipelatous inflammation.

"All the usual applications were resorted to for the purpose of allaying this tumor and inflammation, but without success; his breathing became more oppressed, and his powers rapidly declined: at that period, between eleven and twelve o'clock, of the night of the 22d of February, I was requested to visit him in consultation.

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Upon entering the room, he immediately extended towards me his hand, thereby manifesting the yet undisturbed state of his intellect, although he was then nearly deprived of

CLAIMS ON MANKIND.

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the power of speech. Upon approaching his bedside, I at once perceived his situation to be hopeless-the feeble state of his pulse, the hurried and labored respirations,—his livid and anxious countenance-all announced his approaching dissolution, and that nothing could be added to what had already been done by his medical friends then in attendance. The morning of the succeeding day closed his important life."

In the narration of the facts connected with steam navigation we have impartially given, we have pretty clearly demonstrated that Fulton was not entitled to credit as the inventor of steam, or of its application to the purposes of navigation; that even in the apparatus which he made use of, there was nothing strikingly peculiar, or new; and that in common with others of a similar character of mind, in different parts of the world, he was engaged in solving a problem, whose ultimate result was declared by more than one indubitable evidence. Credit is therefore not due to him for any of these things, but for the patient, persevering, and enduring energy, which enabled him to prosecute, under the most adverse and disheartening circumstances, his favorite pursuit until it resulted in the complete triumph of the practical application of steam to the ordinary purposes of navigation.

What influence this practical application of steam to navigation, has already produced, or what in the rapid developments which a few years have brought to light, it is hereafter destined to produce on the fate of the human family, it is hardly safe to calculate. It has already converted the solitary Mississippi and its tributaries into busy peopled thoroughfares, crowded with life, and bearing upon their bosoms the products of twenty degrees of latitude; it has claimed the

Atlantic as its element; melted the frosts of Cape Horn; waked the wilds of the Pacific ocean with its sonorous echoes, and brought the different nations of the earth in such close proximity as to compel them to feel the necessity of living in one common brotherhood.

CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.

among

THE greater part of those who have filled important places their fellow men, have evinced no small degree of anxiety to have the record of their life transmitted to posterity, with as much of praise and as little of censure as the nature of the subject would allow. Chief Justice Marshall, in this respect, differed from most other men, for although fully conscious of the possession of a high order of intellectual attainments, he neither sought occasion to display them, nor courted the admiration of those with whom he was associated. His whole life was spent in endeavoring to attain to a high order of excellence, yet not so much on account of the good opinion of mankind, as from an overweening desire to discharge to the uttermost the obligations imposed upon him by a sense of duty. These once discharged, he was willing to allow his reputation and reward to rest upon the act, without the garniture of praise to set it off, and hence he was indifferent to the collection of those materials necessary to prepare a minute and exact biography.

Nor have his immediate descendants evinced a greater desire to rescue from oblivion the familiar incidents of his life; and the materials composing his biography, are for the most part, collected from collateral sources, and not from the hearthstone, around which they would naturally be supposed to cluster.

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