taken separately, must, of necessity, lose more by inefficient motion, than a single paddle.

That both acquire an increased velocity, in passing through the air to recover their operative position, will be readily perceived, by considering that the axis of the crank which moves both the wheel and the paddle, advances as quickly as the boat to which they are respectively attached. In the one case, this accelerated motion is compounded of the boat's progressive motion, added to the wheel's rotary motion; in the other, the progressive motion of the boat is combined with the eliptical motion of the paddle. To this it may be answered, that the buckets, being fixed to a wheel revolving about a point stationary with respect to the boat, their average motion cannot exceed that of the shaft of the wheel-i, e. of the boat itself. It may be replied, however, that where a set of perpendicularly supported paddles, is operated upon by cranks emanating from a common axis or centre of motion, and moved alternately one set forward and the other backward, the accelerated motion of the returning paddles is always compensated by the reversed action of those which are in the water, precisely as is the case with the buckets of a revolving wheel. In different circumstances, the one contrivance may, undoubtedly, be superior to the other. In vessels of heavy burden, the water wheel may be used to greater advantage; whilst for a small boat, which will not admit of a wheel of large dimensions, you have yourself conceded, "that paddles may be preferable,"* But you have failed, Sir, to demonstrate any difference

.

* Vide Colden's Vindication, p. 78.

of principle between these two species of propellers, when both are made to operate by cranks. I have shewn, on the contrary, that they are only to be distinguished from each other in the mode of their operation, and, consequently, that the only material variance of the boats of Fulton from those of Fitch, being thus resolvable into the difference between fixed and moveable paddles, the Committee were warranted in concluding that they were "in sub"stance THE SAME INVENTION."

I now proceed, in the second place, to consider your objections to that part of the Report, which relates to the invention of Mr. Dod. In regard to these improvements, the Committee stated, "that "in the spring of the year 1810, the Petitioner "applied to one Daniel Dod, also a citizen of the "State of New-Jersey, to make a Steam engine of "power sufficient to drive a boat of a proper size "from Elizabethtown to New-York; and that the "said Daniel Dod did thereupon, without ever "having seen Mr. Fulton's Patent or Specifica"tion, make a small Steam engine as a model; in "the making of which he invented some improve

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ments (as the Committee believed) of great in26 portance, for which the said Daniel Dod after"wards, on the 29th of November, 1811, obtained "a patent from the United States :"*-And in expressing their opinions more at large, the Committee added, in reference to this particular statement of the fact, "that the improvements and inventions of "Daniel Dod on the Steam engine are important

* Letter to Colden, Appendix K.

"and material, and that the said Aaron Ogden has "built his boat upon principles invented by John "Fitch, improved by the said Daniel Dod."*

Animadverting upon this opinion, you observe, in the first place," that Governor Ogden, with a de"sign to avoid any question under Fulton's patent, "built his boat without the bucket wheels at the "side, without wheel guards and wheel covers, and "attempted to drive her by a wheel in the stern, "then," (you add very facetiously,)" she may have "been built upon principles invented by Fitch, as "improved by Dod, and was good for nothing. "But when she got Mr. Fulton's bucket wheels at "her side, his wheel guard and wheel covers, then "she was, in substance, the invention of Fulton, not"withstanding she had what Daniel Dod claimed "as his invention and improvements."+

How, Sir, is it possible that Mr. Ogden could have hoped, by placing his wheel at the stern of his boat, to have evaded the consequences of an interference with Mr. Fulton's inventions, when he knew that Mr. Fulton's patent embraced that very mode of applying the propellers, as well as the plan of using them upon each side of the vessel ? Again, Sir, if the project of propelling the boat in this way was afterwards abandoned, and it was thought better to refit her with the wheels upon the sides, how did she then become the invention of Mr. Fulton, when the same mode of placing the propellers had been adopted in some of the experiments of Fitch, and when these same propellers had been applied by Hull, by Mo

* Letter to Colden, Appendix K. † Colden's Vind. p. 79. Vide Appendix D.

rey, by Allison, by Thomason, and by others, long before Mr. Fulton had directed his attention to the improvement of Steam boats? And, lastly-If Mr. Ogden's boat, after her alteration became substantially the invention of Mr. Fulton, how comes it that no suit was ever commenced for this violation of the patent rights of Mr. Fulton, when you allege that Mr. Ogden had at first built his boat differently in order to avoid prosecution on that very ground?

Leaving you to answer these questions at your leisure, allow me, as the opportunity presents, to return for a moment to the examination of those parts of Mr. Fulton's patented inventions which have hitherto escaped attention. His claims to the waterwheels we have disposed of; but his title to the wheel guards and wheel covers, to which you have first alluded, may rest upon a more solid foundation. They do not appear, indeed, ever to have been applied in the same form or to this particular species of machinery, before they were adopted by Mr. Fulton: nor did they enter into his original design. They were the obvious result of practical observation, suggested to him, (as they would have been to any other ingenious man who had ever seen a fanning mill and a pleasure sleigh,) by experience of the accidents, to which the unprotected wheels of his first boat were exposed. They are certainly commodious and useful additions to his plan, but not, I suspect, those material improvements, which it would ever have been deemed necessary to secure by Patent, had the claim to originality, in respect to the essential principles of the invention, been interposed with equal confidence: For if Mr. Fulton possessed the exclusive right of an invention

to the water wheel, he need not surely have been solicitous to engross every possible mode of protecting them by guards and covers, which no person could have wished to appropriate, who did not possess the undoubted right to use the wheels themselves. But from the careful and minute description, which he gives in his specification of these particular improvements, and from the complacency, Sir, with which you have dwelt upon their merits, wheel guards and wheel covers seem indeed to be regarded as the most important of his discoveries. Perhaps, they are so; but to my view, I must confess, Sir, they appear no more proper subjects for a Patent, than the "fenders of wood or iron of 66 any kind;"-the invention of " placing the steering "wheel and steersman further forward in a Steam boat than is usual in other vessels ;"* or the improve

*The great anxiety manifested to secure, by a forestalling specification, the exclusive right to wheel guards, covers, and fenders, of all sorts and descriptions, certainly betrays some lurking doubt or apprehension as to the water wheels themselves. For if Mr. Fulton had felt secure in his title to the latter, why should he have taken so much pains about those things which are mere accessories to their use? Apprehensive that the circumstance of his "having been the first to demonstrate the superior advantages of "the water wheel," might not be altogether sufficient to its exclusive use, he seems to have determined to prevent any other person from adopting the same propeller, except at a disadvantage; and notwithstanding he had placed guards round the outside of his wheels only, and had simply covered them with boards, he is not content with patenting these as his invention, but claims the exclusive right "to project from the side or sides of a Steam boat, "beams, or timber, or spars, or fender, or fenders of wood or iron "of any kind, to guard or protect the water wheels, whether by "boards, netting or grating, canvass or leather, or in whatever “other manner it may be, to prevent their throwing water on deck, "or entangling in ropes." Vide Appendix D.

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