"The Electoral Councillors have found serious obstacles in the way of granting the above petition, and, without giving their reasons, have directed me to inform you of their decision, and that, in consequence, the request is not granted by his Electoral Highness. H. REICHE. "HANOVER, _July 25, 1707_." [60] _Scientific American_, February 24, 1877. This failure of Papin's petition was the death-blow to his effort to establish steam-navigation. A mob of boatmen, who thought they saw in the embryo steamship the ruin of their business, attacked the vessel at night, and utterly destroyed it. Papin narrowly escaped with his life, and fled to England. In the year 1736, Jonathan Hulls took out an English patent for the use of a steam-engine for ship-propulsion, proposing to employ his steamboat in towing. In 1737 he published a well-written pamphlet, describing this apparatus, which is shown in Fig. 66, a reduced fac-simile of the plate accompanying his paper. [Illustration: FIG. 66.--Hulls's Steamboat, 1736.] He proposed using the Newcomen engine, fitted with a counterpoise-weight and a system of ropes and grooved wheels, which, by a peculiar ratchet-like action, gave a continuous rotary motion. His vessel was to have been used as a tow-boat. He says, in his description: "In some convenient part of the Tow-boat there is placed a Vessel about two-3rds full of water, with the Top closed; and this Vessel being kept Boiling, rarifies the Water into a Steam, this Steam being convey'd thro' a large pipe into a cylindrical Vessel, and there condensed, makes a Vacuum, which causes the weight of the atmosphere to press down on this Vessel, and so presses down a Piston that is fitted into this Cylindrical Vessel, in the same manner as in Mr. Newcomen's Engine, with which he raises Water by Fire. "_P_, the Pipe coming from the Furnace to the Cylinder. _Q_, the Cylinder wherein the steam is condensed. _R_, the Valve that stops the Steam from coming into the Cylinder, whilst the Steam within the same is condensed. _S_, the Pipe to convey the condensing Water into the Cylinder. _T_, a cock to let in the condensing Water when the Cylinder is full of Steam and the Valve, _P_, is shut. _U_, a Rope fixed to the Piston that slides up and down in the Cylinder. "_Note._ This Rope, _U_, is the same Rope that goes round the wheel, _D_, in the machine." In the large division of his plate, _A_ is the chimney; _B_ is the tow-boat; _C C_ is the frame carrying the engine; _Da_, _D_, and _Db_ are three wheels carrying the ropes _M_, _Fb_, and _Fa_, _M_ being the rope _U_ of his smaller figure, 30. _Ha_ and _Hb_ are two wheels on the paddle-shafts, _I I_, arranged with pawls so that the paddle-wheel, _I I_, always turns the same way, though the wheels _Ha_ and _Hb_ are given a reciprocating motion; _Fb_ is a rope connecting the wheels in the vessel, _Db_, with the wheels at the stern. Hulls says: