"Length on deck, _three hundred feet_; breadth, _two hundred feet_; thickness of her sides, _thirteen feet_ of alternate oak plank and cork wood--carries forty-four guns, four of which are _hundred pounders_; quarter-deck and forecastle guns, forty-four pounders; and further to annoy an enemy attempting to board, can discharge _one hundred gallons of boiling water in a minute_, and by mechanism, brandishes _three hundred cutlasses_ with the utmost regularity over her gunwales; works also an equal number of heavy iron pikes of great length, darting them from her sides with prodigious force, and withdrawing them every quarter of a minute"!! The war having terminated before the "_Fulton the First_" was entirely completed, she was taken to the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, and moored on the flats abreast of that station, where she remained, and was used as a receiving-ship until the fourth of June, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, when she was blown up. The following letters from Commodore Isaac Chauncey (then Commandant of the New York Navy Yard) to the Honorable Secretary of the Navy, informing him of the distressing event, concludes this brief history of the _first steam vessel of war ever built_. * * * * * U. S. NAVY YARD, NEW YORK, _June 5th, 1829_. SIR: It becomes my painful duty to report to you a most unfortunate occurrence which took place yesterday, at about half past two o'clock, P. M., in the accidental blowing up of the Receiving Ship Fulton, which killed twenty-four men and a woman, and wounded nineteen; there are also five missing. Amongst the killed I am sorry to number Lieutenant S. M. Brackenridge, a very fine, promising officer, and amongst the wounded are, Lieutenants Charles F. Platt, and A. M. Mull, and Sailing-Master Clough, the former dangerously, and the two last severely; there are also four Midshipmen severely wounded. How this unfortunate accident occurred I am not yet able to inform you, nor have I time to state more particularly; I will, as soon as possible, give a detailed account of the affair. I have the honor to be, Sir, Very respectfully, J. CHAUNCEY. HON. JOHN BRANCH, _Secretary of the Navy, Washington._ U.S. NAVY YARD, NEW YORK, _June 8th, 1829_. Sir: