This idea gained strength by the disaster which befell the steamboat just before the time set for her trial trip. She was completed; and Fulton, too excited to sleep although wearied by long labor, restlessly awaited the day to dawn when he could prove her success. During the night a great storm broke over Paris; the rain fell in torrents accompanied by heavy winds. At daybreak Fulton was aroused by a breathless messenger whose anxious face and haste betokened bad news. He was the watchman in charge of the precious invention. He rushed into Fulton’s bedroom, with the exclamation: “Oh, sir, the boat has broken in pieces and gone to the bottom of the river!” Fulton arose in dismay, hastily dressed, and rushed to the scene. The news was all too true! The boat, too weak in structure to bear the heavy machinery, buffeted by the high waves and heavy winds, had broken in the middle, depositing the valuable engine and other machinery in the river. Nothing was in sight above the water! Fulton later confessed to a dismay never felt at any other time. Many a man, at this point, would have given up the whole project in despair. But this crisis of apparent failure was the moment for Fulton’s strength of character to assert itself. After months of labor the borrowed engine and Mr. Livingston’s money seemed forever lost. But Fulton set himself to the task of making the best of this disappointment. He wasted not a moment in vain regret, but without going back to his home for breakfast, he began, with his own hands, to try and rescue the boat. For twenty-four hours he worked, without food or rest, until—wet and weary but triumphant—he recovered the machinery and engine. They were found to be little hurt, although the boat itself was a total wreck. But, alas, Fulton paid a heavy penalty for over-taxing his strength; for a permanent weakness of the lungs, from which he never fully recovered, resulted from the exposure and long struggle in the water to save his precious invention. At no moment in his life did he display such fine courage as at this time of apparent failure. Fulton immediately began to build another boat, in which he placed the recovered machinery. By the month of July he was again ready to show his friends and the French scientists the working-power of his invention. Mr. Fulner Skipwith was then our Consul-General in Paris. He was interested in the idea of steam navigation, and during the preceding year had sent a letter of inquiry regarding it to Robert Fulton, who gladly answered his questions. Mr. Skipwith had married in Paris, while Fulton was busy with his torpedo experiments on the French coast, and the Consul-General’s first child was born during the spring of 1803. This accounts for the merry letter of invitation which Fulton sent him on July 24th. MR. SKIPWITH; MY DEAR FRIEND,