"I went into the chamber of the Committee of Manufactures and wrote there till six. Dined with Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Winthrop. While we were at dinner John Barney burst into the chamber, rushed up to General Scott and told him, with groans, that the President wished to see him; that the great gun on board the Princeton had burst and killed the Secretary of State, Upshur; the Secretary of the Navy, T.W. Gilmer; Captain Beverly Kennon, Virgil Maxey, a Colonel Gardiner, of New York, a colored servant of the President, and desperately wounded several of the crew." So tragic an introduction was not needed to direct public attention to the Princeton. Ericsson had placed the United States at the head of naval powers in the application of steam-power to warfare. He had made the experiment of the Princeton at a great cost to himself, and two years of concentrated effort had been devoted to the service of the Government. For his time, labor, and necessary expenditures he rendered a bill of $15,000, leaving the question of what, if anything, should be charged for his patent rights entirely to the discretion and generosity of the Government. The bill was refused payment by the Navy Department because of its limited discretion. Ericsson went to Congress with it, but a dozen years passed without the slightest progress toward a settlement. A court of claims rendered a unanimous decree in his favor, but Congress, to which the bill was again sent, failed to make an appropriation, and there the matter has remained, notwithstanding the brilliant services since rendered to this country by the inventor.