Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton (1765-1815): Steamboat Pioneer
Robert Fulton’s imagination, inventiveness, and business acumen enabled him to build upon the success of John Fitch and successfully expand the reach of commercial steamboat transportation. In 1794, Fulton concentrated on engineering canals. His Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation (1796) dealt with a complete system of inland-water transportation based on small canals extending throughout the countryside. He included details on inclined planes for raising boats—he did not favor locks—aqueducts for valley crossings, boats for specialized cargo, and bridge designs featuring bowstring beams to transmit only vertical loads to the piers. Although few bridges were built to his design in the British Isles, his canal ideas did not gain acceptance in his time. Other innovations and inventions attributed to Fulton included submarine projects as well as various advancements to paddlewheels and steamboat design.
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 [underlined]. 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 [underlined]." He observes that "Thornton has published your calumny in a pamphlet, and each of you shall make atonements."
Fulton states that he is journeying to Washington in hopes to "get the patent laws amended as to protect mental property or diminish Lawsuits." Fulton requests that the recipient send letters "to any of your influential friends who are friendly to science and the Improvements of our country." He mentions names including Lloyd and Quincy.