He adds in postscript: I was happy to hear by your last letter directed to Mr. West that you were down in the Country among our old friends and that they together with my good old Grandmother were in good health. This letter fairly depicts Fulton’s hopes, longings, and accomplishments during his student days in London. They were days of anxiety and of hard work; for hours he would ponder over the “ways and means” of life, and had it not been for the friendship of kindly acquaintances he might have yielded to despair, or have been tempted to set aside the chosen career. In poetic terms he speaks of “Poverties’ cold wind and freezing rain”; and it is evident that he suffered, as far as his happy nature could permit, the pangs of loneliness and of almost actual hunger. Yet he pressed on with his work, and in time the magical wand of industry wrought a welcome change. So passed the first four years of his stay in England, years of fresh impressions, strict economy and untiring labor. Added to his anxieties were the entreaties of his mother to return home, for he writes, November 21st, 1790, “You must not be uneasy at my not returning home as soon as I first intended for it is of the utmost importance my continuing to prosecute my studies in London, and were I to return I must live in Phila. or New York, which would still be distant from you. Besides the certain method by which we have letters from each other ought to make us easy.” His joy was great when in 1791 he attained the honor and pleasure of admission of two of his canvases to the Royal Academy and four others to the Exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists; the former were portraits of young gentlemen, the latter more ambitious works similar to West’s—a study from the Bible story, “Elisha Raising the Widow’s Son,” and “Priscilla and Alladine” from Spenser’s “Faerie Queen.” It was natural that he should take up the study of English history at this time, and two paintings, “Mary Queen of Scots” and “Lady Jane Gray” are interesting and beautiful examples of his art. Both were painted in 1793. No doubt West encouraged and instructed him in this sort of work, and Fulton dreamed of a brilliant future like that of his teacher.