which were prior to Fitch's-and with Lord Stanhope's, Rumsey's and others, who were making efforts and experiments nearly cotemporaneously with him? If there were this identity in the plan of Mr. Fitch's boat and Mr. Fulton's boats, then wheels and paddles are in substance the same.Yet it is not difficult to point out, at least one, substantial difference between them. The paddle must move with much more than twice the velocity of the boat, because half its motion is lost in recovering its position after it has made the stroke ;— whereas if the bucket of the wheel be justly proportioned so as not to drive the water, the progress of the boat will be exactly equal to the motion of that part of the wheel which moves on the surface of the water. But neither the paddle or bucket can be made so as that the water will afford an immovable fulcrum. In this respect the wheel and paddle lose equally, both therefore must go faster than the boat, but the loss of the retrograde motion is peculiar to the paddle. The paddle to drive the boat twelve miles an hour, must consequently move more than twenty-four miles an hour. Mr. Fulton tried experiments with paddles, and the result was an opinion, that wheels were greatly preferable to them and that if a boat could be propelled by paddles at the same rate that it might be by wheels, the great velocity with which the machinery must move, and the consequent friction, would render it very liable to

be disordered and prevent its being durable. In the biography of Fulton,* I have referred to a document which shews that Mr. Fulton had these views. And that such is the difference must be obvious to every one, though he be without any mechanical knowledge, who will give the subject any consideration. I must therefore repeat, that when the committee reported that the boat of Fitch and the boats of Livingston and Fulton were the same in substance, they did not understand the subject about which they affected to give information. The best application of paddles that ever was made, might have been seen in the little boat called the Stoudinger, that plied between this city and Troy last summer. But I believe no one who has witnessed her performance, can doubt that paddles are inferior to wheels: Though for a small boat, which will not admit a wheel of large dimensions, paddles, applied according to the very ingenious invention of Mr. Allair, may be preferable. Perhaps you would say, these are in substance the invention of Fitch. Let any one, however, compare Allair's boat with the representation of Fitch's, which you have given in your appendix, and if he has the least knowledge of mechanics he will readily perceive the difference.

But the committee reported that Governor Ogden built his boat on principles invented by Fitch improved by Dod. Now, sir, suffer me to tell you some facts in relation to this business, which * Life of Fulton, p. 153.

were not known to the committee when they made their report, because they asked for no other information in relation to Governor Ogden's boat than he chose to give them. Governor Ogden, with a design to avoid any question under Fulton's patent, built his boat upon such a plan that she was to go without the bucket wheels at her side, without wheel guards, or wheel covers; all of which are the patented inventions of Fulton, Governor Ogden found that in this plan his vessel would not perform as he expected and desired.He altered her; took precisely the bucket wheel, wheel guards, and wheel covers of Fulton.

The first plan he attempted to execute was to drive his boat, the Sea Horse, by a wheel in her stern, for which she was fitted by two stern posts and a hollow counter. And she may at this moment be seen, at her dock in the city of New-York, with these marks of an abortive birth. This was the boat built by Governor Ogden, and she may have been built " upon principles invented by the "said John Fitch as improved by the said Dan"iel Dod," and then she was good for nothing. But when she got Mr. Fulton's bucket wheels at her side, his wheel guards and wheel covers, then she was, in substance, the invention of Fulton, notwithstanding she had what Daniel Dod claimed as his inventions and improvements, which the committee reported were so important and material, and which they undertook to say positively, but

so far as I recollect without any other evidence than Governor Ogden's assertion, Dod made without ever having seen Mr. Fulton's patent or specification, although they do not venture to affirm that he had never seen Mr. Fulton's boat, which had then been running more than three years.-If the committee had possessed this knowledge, would they not have reported that Governor Ogden's boat was built on principles invented by Fulton, rather than according to an invention of Fitch? I think I shall not now be censured for saying the committee were not informed on this part of their subject.

As to the improvement of Daniel Dod I think you give up the cranks for which he obtained a patent. You must have seen that as to these it was too desperate to attempt to support him in his pretensions; because every body must have told you that cranks were the very first means applied to convert the libratory motion of an engine beam into a rotary motion. Of course, that this invention was much older than Mr. Dod. And as to what I have called, and what Governor Ogden called, a parallel link, it is precisely as you have described it," a simple and easy mode of "giving a perfect rectilineal motion to the piston"rod, although it be attached to the end of the "beam which moves in a curve." But all this very ingenious and very accurate description will not alter the nature of the thing. It is, after all,

neither more nor less than a parallel link, and such a parallel link as had been applied by Bolton and Watt to different parts of their engines, many years before Mr. Dod could have thought of an engine. It was this which induced me to express my surprise that you should have given Dod credit for this invention as for a material and important improvement, when I knew it was impossible that you could have applied to any impartial person acquainted with the subject, who would not have told you it was no improvement at all; because it had been used a great length of time previously to Dod's having pretended to the in

vention.

There is another part of the report connected with this subject, which I shall briefly notice. It is there stated, that in 1810, Gov. Ogden applied to Mr. Dod to make him an engine of sufficient power to drive a boat of a proper size from Elizabethtown to New-York; that Dod did thereupon, without ever having seen Mr. Fulton's patent" or specification," make a small steam engine, and invented some improvements for which he obtained a patent. Now, I have noticed in the life of Fulton, that though the committee say Dod had not seen Mr. Fulton's patent, they do not say he had not seen his boats. They could not indeed, because it was known that Mr. Dod lived within a few miles of New-York, and had an opportunity of seeing Mr. Fulton's boats every day. But