served in the royal archives at Samancas, and among the public papers of Catalonia and those of the secretary at war for the year 1543. This narrative states that "Blasco de Garay, a sea captain, exhibited to the emperor and king Charles V., in the year 1543, an engine by which ships and vessels of the largest size could be propelled, even in a calm, without the aid of oars or sails. Notwithstanding the opposition which this project encountered, the emperor resolved that an experiment should be made, as in fact it was, with success, in the harbor of Barcelona, on the 17th of June, 1543. Garay never publicly exposed the construction of his engine, but it was observed at the time of his experiment, that it consisted of a large caldron or vessel of boiling water, and a moveable wheel attached to each side of the ship. The experiment was made on a ship of 209 tons, arrived from Calibre, to discharge a cargo of wheat at Barcelona; it was called the Trinity, and the captain's name was Peter de Scarza. By order of Charles V. and the prince Philip the Second, his son, there were present at the time, Henry de Toledo, the governor, Peter Cardona, the treasurer, Ravago, the vice-chancellor, Francis Gralla, and many other persons of rank, both Castilians and Catalonians; and among others, several sea captains witnessed the operation, some in the vessel, and others on the shore. The emperor and prince, and others with them, applauded the engine, and especially the expertness with which the ship could be tacked. The treasurer Ravago, an enemy to the project, said it would move two leagues in three hours. It was very complicated and expensive, and exposed to the constant danger of bursting the boiler. The other commissioners affirmed, that the vessel could be tacked twice as quick as a galley served by the common method, and that at its slowest rate it would move a league in an hour. The exhibition being finished, Garay took from the ship his engine, and having deposited the wood work in the arsenal of Barcelona, kept the rest to himself. Notwithstanding the difficulties and opposition thrown in the way by Ravago, the invention was approved; and if the expedition in which Charles V. was then engaged had not failed, it would undoubtedly have been favored by him. As it was, he raised Garay to a higher station, gave him a sum of money (200,000 maravedies) as a present, ordered all the expenses of the experiment to be paid out of the general treasury, and conferred upon him other rewards."

The editor of the Franklin Journal, from which this extract has been made, observes, "when the Public Records' shall appear in an authentic form, their evidence must be admitted; until then he should not be inclined to commence the history of the inven

tion of the steamboat so far back as 1543. For circumstantial as the account is, it seems to have been written since the days of Fulton."

He is not alone in this opinion, as it is universally regarded as a mere fiction, the offspring of an individual jealous of his country's reputation.

The most prominent and authentic account of the early projects of applying steam as a motive power to the propelling of vessels, is given in a treatise printed in London in 1737, entitled "Description and draught of a new-invented machine, for carrying vessels out of, or into any harbor, port, or river, against wind and tide or in a calm: for which his majesty George II. has granted letters patent for the sole benefit of the author, for the space of fourteen years; by Jonathan Hulls," The draught or drawing prefixed is a plate of a stout boat with chimney smoking, a pair of wheels rigged out over each side of the stern, moved by means of ropes passing round their outer rims; and to the axis of these wheels are fixed six paddles to propel the boat. From the stern of the boat a tow-line passes to the foremast of a two-decker, which the boat thus tows through the water. There is no evidence that Hulls ever applied his conceptions to practice.

Since that time, down to the period of the great and successful experiments of Fulton, several attempts were made here and in Europe, with varied success. Among the most, if not the most conspicuous, were those made by the subject of this article.

A few years previous to his death, Fitch prepared a memoir of himself, including a history of his experiments in steam. These papers were bequeathed to the Franklin Library of Philadelphia, with directions that they should be unsealed and perused thirty years from the time of his decease. At the appointed period they were opened, and found to contain a very full account of his life, particularly of that portion which related to his experiments in steam, including the of his operations from the time the thought first occurred to him, until the completion of the boat so far as to make numerous experiments on the Delaware, the subsequent alterations made, and the final abandonment of the scheme by the original stockholders.

progress

These manuscripts show but one tissue of discouragements and perplexities, and prove him to have been a strong-minded but unlettered man, with a perseverance almost unexampled, and a determination to let no difficulty in the execution of his plan prevent him from endeavoring to bring it to perfection, so long as the shareholders furnished the means of defraying the expenses. Indeed, disappointment and oppression appear to have borne him

company from his very youth; and, as he himself remarks, it is the history of one of the most "singular," as well as one of the most "unfortunate men in the world!”

From this narrative we shall make liberal quotations, especially from that portion relating to his younger days. It is the incidents of youth that give a tone and direction to character. We can all of us refer to some of the most apparently trivial events of earlier years that have completely changed the whole current of our thoughts and pursuits. In the memoir before us there can be traced, with a minuteness uncommon even in biography, those circumstances which moulded his strong mind into its peculiar model; and we can there perceive the origin of that misanthropical cast of thought,-that eccentricity of character and that looseness of sentiment in regard to concerns of a serious nature, which so strongly marked the author of its pages.

This memoir is addressed to the "worthy Nathaniel Irwin, of Neshamoney," in Pennsylvania, a clergyman and a gentleman of whose talents and kindness of disposition Fitch had formed the highest estimate, and who, it appears, once requested him to prepare something of the kind. The principal reason which Fitch gives for complying with this request was, that his life had been filled with such a variety of changes, affording such useful lessons to mankind, that he considered it a neglect of duty were he to suppress it.

.*

"The 21st of January, 1743, old style," says he, "was the fatal time of bringing me into existence. The house I was born in was upon the line between Hartford and Windsor (Connecticut.) It was said I was born in Windsor ;* but from the singularity of my make, shape, disposition, and fortune in the world, I am inclined to believe that it was the design of Heaven that I should be born on the very line, and not in any township whatever; yet am happy also that it did not happen between two states, that I can say I was born somewhere."

Fitch's father was a farmer in good circumstances. His besetting sin seems to have consisted in a want of generosity in pecuniary affairs, so much so that his son observes, "I presume he never spent five shillings at a tavern during the whole course of his life." This, in our day, would be considered as a very singular and inapt illustration of that trait of disposition; but when we remember the customs of society at that period, and the total deprivation of every thing like "amusement," inseparable from the isolated condition of agriculturists, we shall comprehend some

* Now East Windsor.

thing like the spirit of the allusion. Still, his parent appears to have been a good provider; for he goes on to state, "we always had plenty of victuals and drink in the house. In the whole course of my acquaintance with him, I never knew him out of cider but about two weeks, and never out of pickled pork. Our victuals were coarse, but wholesome, such as pork and beans, codfish and potatoes, hasty pudding and milk," and, what was particularly valued, "always a stout hasty pudding after dinner." His pa. rents had five children, two sons and two daughters, besides the unfortunate John."

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"From the time of my birth," says he, "until I was five years of age, nothing material happened to me that I can recollect, any more than crawling along the floor and picking ants out of the cracks, and now and then catching a fly, which made as lively impression on my mind, as great, perhaps, as the Trojan war on the minds of heroes."

"When I was four years old I went to school: I know from the circumstance that my mistress used to ask me how my mother was, and she died when I was five years old. I recollect that I learned to spell the first summer before my mother's death, whilst I went to Mrs. Rockwell. I remember frequently spelling there without the book the words commandment, Jerusalem, &c. But soon the fatal day arrived when my mother's guardianship should be taken from me, and early in the fall I was deprived of her. Although I did not consider my loss, natural affection carried my griefs to a very great excess for a child of my age." He here, and frequently elsewhere, speaks of his mother with regard, and no doubt her loss proved injurious to him. She was a kind and affectionate woman, without those disagreeable traits which marked the character of his other parent.

"When about six years of age," he remarks," a most extra. ordinary circumstance happened to me, worthy of the notice of a Roman soldier." Returning from school about dusk one day, he found no one in the house except a little sister, his second brother being in the barn yard holding a "wicked cow" for his eldest sister to milk. This little sister being anxious to show him a present which she had received during the day, it being too dark to see without, lighted a candle to find it. Unfortunately, in her search she set fire to two large bundles of flax standing in a distant corner of the room, which young Fitch no sooner observed, than, with a presence of mind truly wonderful in a child so young, he ran and seized one of the blazing bundles, which was more than he was enabled to lift without resting it upon his knees, carried it to the hearth, and threw it down. In so doing he blistered his

hands and set his hair in a blaze, but, smothering the fire on his head with his naked hands, he sprang and grasped the other bundle and brought it to the same place, blistering his hands and setting his head on fire the second time, and putting it out in like manner. Having done this, he jumped upon the bundles until the fire was extinguished. "In the mean time," he says, "whilst I was thus occupied, my little sister Chloe being frightened, ran to the barn yard, and probably told my brother some improper story. When I had the fire put out, notwithstanding my painful hands and smarting face, which was then covered with blisters, I went to relate the tale to my elder brother; but no sooner did I arrive in the yard than he fell foul of me, boxing my ears and beating me beyond reason for the greatest fault, and would not give me leave to say a word in my behalf. As my father had that evening gone a courting, I had nowhere to apply to for redress, therefore was obliged not only to submit to the greatest indignities, but to the greatest injustice. On his return I made complaints, but without satisfaction or redress. This being what I may call the first act of my life, seemed to forebode the future rewards that I was to receive for my labors through it, which has generally corresponded with that."

When he was about seven years old, his father married " one Abigail Church," whom he describes as being an orderly, easytempered old maid of forty, possessing sense sufficient to manage the affairs of the house.

"My father," he continues, "kept me constantly at school until I was eight or nine years of age, as my schooling cost him nothing. When the weather was too bad to go to school, he had goodness enough to encourage my learning my book at home, and would frequently teach me. Before I was ten years old I could say the New England Primer all by heart, from Adam's fall to the end of the catechism. But the most surprising thing of my learning appears to me to be this: My father had an old arithmetic book in the house, by one Hodder, with the old-fashioned division in it. I was able at nine years of age to make figures pretty well, as well as to write a legible hand. Whenever I had a minute's leisure I would have that book in my hand, and learned myself out of it the true principles of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; and the year that I was nine years of age, could tell how many minutes old I should be when I should have seen ten years, but was not able to multiply the figure nine: this I did in the presence of four or five neighbors one rainy day, to their admiration. When about eight years of age, my father took me from school, and set me to work in the most serious and diligent