7 Robert Fulton 7Returning to London in 1804, Fulton advanced his
ideas with the British government for submersible and
low-lying craft that would carry explosives in an attack.
Two raids against the French using his novel craft, however,
were unsuccessful. In 1805, after Nelson’s victory at
Trafalgar, it was apparent that Britain was in control of the
seas without the aid of Fulton’s temperamental weapons.
In the same year, the parts for his projected steamboat
were ready for shipment to the United States, but Fulton
spent a desperate year attempting to collect money he felt
the British owed him.
Maiden Voyage
Arriving in New York in December 1806, Fulton at once
set to work supervising the construction of the steamboat
that had been planned in Paris with Livingston. He also
attempted to interest the U.S. government in a submarine,
but his demonstration of it was a fiasco. By early August
1807 a 150-foot- (45-metre-) long Steamboat, as Fulton called
it, was ready for trials. Its single-cylinder condensing steam
engine (24-inch bore and four-foot stroke) drove two
15-foot-diameter side paddlewheels; it consumed oak and
pine fuel, which produced steam at a pressure of two to
three pounds per square inch. The 150-mile (240-km) trial
run from New York to Albany required 32 hours (an average
of almost 4.7 miles [7.6 km] per hour), considerably better
time than the four miles per hour required by the monopoly.
The passage was epic because sailing sloops required four
days for the same trip.
After building an engine house, raising the bulwark,
and installing berths in the cabins of the now-renamed
North River Steamboat, Fulton began commercial trips
in September. He made three round-trips fortnightly
between New York and Albany, carrying passengers and