Robert Fulton

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Robert Fulton (1765-1815). [Letter] 1815 January 28, Trenton [to] Nathaniel Cutting.

Fulton charges Cutting with writing a letter which was read before the Trenton House of Assembly, a letter which was “false and malignant evidently done and with great exactness and care to injure me and gratify Thornton Fairfax and other of my ignorant enemies; you state positively that I pirated Mr. Cartwright's rope machine and sold it to you as wholly my own, this is untrue.” Fulton points out that he introduced Cutting to Cartwright, and reconstructed the machine from memory, making alterations, and keeping with the patent laws of France. Fulton also states that he has Fitch’s papers demonstrating that Fitch “had not one exact scientific idea about a Steamboat.” Fulton counters, “I accept the war. I defy you or any living being to stain my character with one unfair, ungenerous or illiberal act, towards my Friends, or of assuming to myself in any way what is not my own and I will not lose an instant, in making you answerable for a libel on my character as a man of honor.” He observes that “Thornton has published your calumny in a pamphlet, and each of you shall make atonements.”

 

 

This letter is available on the digital library project I Remain.