intrusted with the erection of a canal lock, such men were engineers, and might be charged with the direction of any enterprise, however new in principle, or difficult in execution. We hope that the superiority of education in the case of steamboats, even if no other instance could be cited, will establish how very far science, assisted by proper opportunities for practice, must excel that knowledge, which has its source no deeper than the workshop, or consists wholly in manual dexterity.

When we reflect on the other parts of the history of steamboats among us, we cannot but be sensible, that the stigma of ingratitude lies against us as a nation. It is a point of sound policy, that the person who brings any important invention to maturity, shall receive a national reward, in the form either of a monopoly, or an equivalent for the use of the invention by the public. The state of New-York, deeply sensible of the vast importance of steam navigation to her prosperity, proposed to the first who should place in her waters a successful steam-boat, a monopoly for a limited time. This offer was dictated by justice as well as policy. It was obvious, that the powers of the steamengine were sufficient to produce the desired effect; all that remained in doubt, was the exact manner. To test the practicability of the various plans which had been partially tried, or to discover and experiment upon new ones, required both capital and ingenuity, and it could not be hoped that either would be brought into action, without the prospect of an adequate reward. It might also have been anticipated, that any plan, to be successful, must be of extreme simplicity, and that its very simplicity would prevent its protection by ordinary patent laws. Such was, undeniably, the fact. Place a pair of paddle wheels on the axis of the crank of Watt's engine, and we have Fulton's method, which is equally effective and simple. A workman in the employ of Messrs. Livingston, Stevens & Roosevelt, suggested this method to them; but while they clearly saw the objections which are still urged against it, they were not prepared to appreciate its advantages. It was, indeed, as one of the parties frankly states, too simple to suit their views at the time it was proposed; so easy, that they did not believe it could succeed. Yet this very simplicity and ease of application constitutes its most valuable quality. Of all the plans which have ever been proposed, it is the least complex, and yet it is the only one that has been successful.

The truth is, that the construction of a successful steam-boat was attended with innumerable petty practical difficulties. It was several weeks after the first trial of Fulton's boat, before he ventured to make a passage up the river; and it was more than a year of constant alterations, additions and corrections, in which the most consummate ingenuity was brought into action, before

any but the most sanguine believed that he had effected more than his predecessors. Now, however, it appeared before the public in a finished form, and so simple and obvious in all its parts, that the least intelligent might have fancied that they also could have effected as much as Fulton. He shared the same fate with many other benefactors of the human race, to be ridiculed as an unsound projector, until his success was beyond all question, and to be denied the honours of a discoverer, from the simple character of his apparatus.

Innumerable competitors at once appeared to claim equal honours, and to contest with him the sole reward that remained within his reach. Hence, his grant from the state of New-York, was to him a source not of wealth but of constant litigation, in the fatigues incident to which his life fell a sacrifice; while the final solemn decision, that this grant was untenable, entailed poverty upon his family.

Such has frequently been the history of those, who, by genius or industry, have made the more important improvements in the arts. Jealousy and envy detract from their merits; the public grudge or deprive them of a due reward; and their useful labours procure for them only vexation, poverty and dis

tress.

We are far from questioning the correctness of that decision which made the grant to Fulton void, but we may lament that the stern impartiality of the law should have compelled the court to pronounce such a decision. At any rate, we are satisfied, that upon every principle of policy and justice, a national reward is due to the heirs of Fulton, in return for the useful and unrequited services of their father.

That the same end would shortly have been attained by the efforts of another, is no bar to such a claim. Each fairly adventured for a prize that could be adjudged to but one, and his competitor at once acquiesced in the justice of the grant to Fulton, and was content to seek the reward of his ingenuity in another direction. The opposition to Fulton's privileges, and the contest by which they were annulled, were excited by persons who had no merit whatever, and had added nothing to the stock of experimental knowledge, of which the steam-boat was the fruit. Yet before such pretenders the claims of Livingston and Fulton were forced to succumb. We still hope, however, that our national representatives may be awakened to a sufficient sense of public honour and decent gratitude, to make some, however inadequate, remuneration to the descendants of Fulton, for that grant, which the cession of its sovereignty to the general government prevented the state of New-York from making good.

ART. VIII.-Life of Arthur Lee, LL. D. Joint Commissioner of the United States to the Court of France, and Sole Commissioner to the Courts of Spain and Prussia, during the Revolutionary War. With his Political and Literary Correspondence, and his Papers on Diplomatic and Political Subjects, and the Affairs of the United States during the same Period. By RICHARD HENRY LEE: Boston: 1829. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 431 & 399.

We welcome every contribution to the history of our Revolutionary Diplomacy, the most important portion, at last, of the annals of that era. The success which attended the resistance of the colonists, is apt to leave unquestioned the justice of resorting to such an extremity; but it is only in the diplomacy of the times, that we can find the real sources of dissatisfaction; and, more especially, in what manner redress was previously sought; -in fine, from which alone we can collect the spirit of the Revolution. This is the plainest of political axioms; yet that it has been too little inculcated or remembered, appears manifest to us from the infrequency with which the subject has been entertained as a theme of national gratulation. Our orators and writers have been, in general, negatively unjust to the silent services of the cabinet, and to the peculiar merit of those statesmen who encountered the lion in his very den, throwing the rebukes of their injuries and insults into the houses of Parliament, and who in London personally appealed to the sympathy of the English people. Embassies were, in those days, no sinecures, no insignificant appendages of state; they were the hope of this nation, and they proved its efficient helpers.

The means of attaining a knowledge of these services, have not, indeed, until within a few years, been generally accessible. The mass of the people are satisfied with the manifesto of the Declaration of Independence, which is an admirable epitome of the wrongs endured under the British sceptre, but which furnishes a single sentence only in justification of the decisive measure it promulges.-"In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury." Yet it was, doubtless, the pertinacious tyranny which redoubled the oppressions of the colonies, in proportion as they made the most loyal and affectionate representations of their distress, that exasperated them to renounce their allegiance. Several late publications, however, indicate that public curiosity has awakened to a sense of the deficiency of which we have spoken. The Secret Journals of the Old Congress, Mr. Pitkin's Political and Civil History of the United States, Mr. Lyman's History of Ame

rican Diplomacy, and various particular biographies, are diffusing a correct appreciation of the national councils and agents. The life of Arthur Lee is an essential part of the series; his posts as a diplomatist, were the most conspicuous and perilous. One of the American deputies to England itself, and at a critical period their only representative with the most powerful crowns of the continent, upon him mainly depended the success of our infant country in procuring the indispensable alliance and countenance of those powers. To his exertions, open and secret, private and official, may be attributed the excitation of popular feeling, which must have had its effect in postponing some of the devices of British despotism, until its intended victim had better prepared for resistance.

The sketch of the life of Mr. Lee does not occupy one half of the first volume; the remainder of the work is filled with his political and literary correspondence, documents, a short memoir of the Revolution which he left unfinished, and private journals. The biography itself is principally defective in clearness of arrangement; the chronology of the events is sometimes confused, and several dates appear to be wrongly expressed. A strain of panegyric, throughout a professed biography, is always in bad taste, and the Revolution and its men are already embalmed beyond all new arts of eulogy; we should, therefore, have been pleased to find that the present author had allowed the characters he introduces into his narrative, to speak for themselves, in the simple record of their deeds. These blemishes, however, subtract nothing from the main merit of the work, which is full of interesting matter, in the perusal of which, the reader will soon forget all objections. In endeavouring to frame from the whole mass, an outline of the life and services of Mr. Lee, we must presume upon the acquaintance of our readers with the general history of the period, the detail of which would entrench too much upon our proposed gleanings of the less known particulars of these volumes.

The family of our author belongs to the only circle of primores acknowledged by our institutions-they were distinguished amongst the founders of the republic. The services of Richard Henry Lee have been detailed in a separate biography, by his very respectable grandson, the author of the work now before us; and his name, with that of his brother, Francis L. Lee, is ennobled by its place among the signatures of the Declaration of 1776. Two other brothers, Thomas L., and William, were in public life, and the latter held several important public posts abroad with credit. The father of this patriotic brotherhood was not permitted to enjoy the extraordinary happiness of seeing

Memoir of the Life of Richard Henry Lee, and his Correspondence, &c. By Richard H. Lee. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1825.

He died when ArArthur was born in

five sons thus pre-eminently distinguished. thur, the youngest, was but ten years old. Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the 20th of December, 1740. After receiving the rudiments of learning from private instruction, he was sent to the school at Eton, in England; and upon the completion of his course there, entered the University of Edinburgh, and, after his graduation, commenced the study of medicine in the same celebrated, and at that time unrivalled institution. He took his degree of M. D. with great distinction, winning a medal for the best botanical Latin treatise, which was published by order of the University. Having made a tour of Holland and Germany, Dr. Lee returned to Virginia, and commenced the practice of his profession at Williamsburg, then the metropolis. The bent of his mind, however, was decidedly to politics: he was present at the parliamentary debate on the Stamp Act, and when the duty bill was passed, he seconded the arguments of the "Farmer's Letters," by a series of anonymous publications in England. Before his return, he established a plan of correspondence amongst the leading patriots of the Colonies, and secured, from his friends in London, the means of obtaining the earliest intelligence of the movements of the mother court.

Mr. Lee, having engaged thus earnestly in the question, it was not to be expected that he would remain content with the limited exertions which his profession would allow he accordingly adopted the resolution of abandoning his lucrative business, and devoting himself wholly to the cause of his country. To effect this, he determined to return to England, and apply himself to the study of the law, that he might acquire familiarity with the science of politics and government, and furnish such information as concerned the colonies, and could only be gathered by personal observation. In 1766, he went to London, which city he found "the strong-hold of popular opposition, and the society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights, the most active in conducting it:" with the design of connecting the grievances of the two nations, he became a member of the society, and purchased the freedom of the city, which qualified him as a voter in municipal affairs. His brother William was, at this time, an alderman and sheriff of London; but, upon the rupture, he took the side of his native country. Mr. Lee associated with Wilkes, introduced the complaints of America into the Middlesex petition, and successfully proposed a resolution, that the members of the club would support no candidate for parliament, who would not pledge himself to promote the granting of the power of self-taxation to America. The mysterious Junius was an adviser of this body, and had an amicable discussion with Mr. Lee on some points of American policy, on which they hap