But Fulton longed to give to humanity something better than mere amusement,—he wanted to help them with their work, to make traveling easier, and, if possible, to banish warfare. His experiences with his submarine torpedo-boat will be told in the next chapter. CHAPTER VIII BUILDING THE FIRST SUBMARINE And now Fulton began to build his submarine torpedo-boat and named it _Nautilus_, meaning a sea-shell. He wrote a letter to the French Directory and offered to submit his plan and explain his engine to Napoleon, whom he had heard was “a good engineer.” The emperor was at the height of his power. With France and England at war, disturbed conditions prevailed throughout Europe and the unrest hindered all progress. Fulton offered to the French nation, through its governing body, his original weapon to secure their supremacy upon the seas throughout the world. His letters on the subject, which must have seemed like fairy-tales, fortunately are preserved in the archives of France. In one he asked to be authorized to build the engine he had invented and to try it against the English fleet. He himself promised to make the trial and asked no other compensation for labor extending over eighteen months than “the happiness of having contributed to the re-establishment of peace, the freedom of the seas and of commerce, and the consolidation of the Republic.” The Directory appointed a committee to consider Fulton’s novel plan; they made a fairly favorable report, for, they said, “the inventor is no charlatan, for he proposes to captain his engine himself and thus gives his head as a hostage for his success.” But after several years of experiment and trial, Fulton was still far from finding acceptance of his plan. In 1797, when he began to devise it, he was possibly inspired by the work of an American, David Bushnell, of Connecticut, who had built a turtle-shaped boat to dive under water and attach an explosive to an enemy’s boat. The device met with scant success in America, so Bushnell crossed to France, where he also failed to arouse interest. Fulton’s invention was far more powerful and _agile_, if we may use the word. It could sail like a common boat on the water, then dive below and remain under the water at any depth for more than six hours at a time; guided by a compass, it could move about with ease, and plant torpedoes where desired. Small wonder that the Frenchmen were slow to believe all the astonishing statements made in its favor by the enthusiastic inventor.