But, to whomsoever the invention belonged, the merit of first permanently developing its power and usefulness belongs to Robert Fulton. He it was who showed how it could be made not merely an instrument of vast importance to mankind, but also an immense source of profit to all who adopted it, though he himself, if reports be true, derived no advantage from it, but died in 1815 very poor and almost broken-hearted through the persecution of jealous and narrow-minded rivals, leaving his family in greatly embarrassed circumstances, but at the same time leaving behind him an everlasting memorial of his energy and perseverance, and an enduring stigma on those who had taunted him with a “_Fulton’s folly_.” The application of the new power to the propulsion of vessels was rapidly followed up in America, and, in 1809, the first steamboat was launched on the St. Lawrence of which an account at the time appeared in the _Quebec Mercury_.[95] [Sidenote: First steam-boat on the St. Lawrence, 1813.] In the spring of 1813, a second boat of increased dimensions was launched from the banks of the St. Lawrence. She was 130 feet in length of keel, and 140 feet on deck with a width of 24 feet, and by the account given by the _Mercury_ she made the passage from Montreal to Quebec in twenty-two and a half hours, notwithstanding that the wind was easterly the whole time and blowing strong. But though the _Swiftsure_, for such was her name, beat the most famous of the sailing packets on the line (fourteen hours in a race of thirty-six hours), her owners do not seem to have been very confident of her movements under all circumstances or of the number of passengers who would patronize her, for she was advertised to “sail as the wind and passengers may suit.” The success of the _Clermont_ for the purposes of passenger traffic on rivers soon, however, spread to other countries. FOOTNOTES: [2] _Ante_, vol. i. Introd. p. xxxi. Arrian, Exped. Alex. 11, 21. [3] Galley from Koyunjik, _ante_, vol. i. p. 276. [4] See the bas-reliefs from Nineveh, British Museum. [5] Owen’s “Lectures on Comparative Anatomy,” 2nd. ed. p. 605. Carpenter’s “Physiology,” 645. “Woodcroft on Marine Propulsion,” note, p. 1, and drawing of Nautilus in frontispiece to Woodcroft’s “Steam Navigation.” See also an interesting paper, read at the Society of Arts on the 14th of April, 1858, by John MacGregor, Esq., M.A., Barrister at Law.