[2] On the 6th of June, 1914, the writer laid aside work upon this volume, to serve as sponsor for the U. S. Submarine Tender _Fulton_, launched at Quincy, Massachusetts,—the first vessel of its type in our navy, to serve as Mother of the Fleet of Torpedoes. CHAPTER XII SOME EARLY STEAMBOATS Fulton did not forget his promise to build a steamboat for America, even though he was so occupied in trying to induce the English people to use his submarine torpedoes. As soon as he arrived in London, free from the entanglements of French warfare, he renewed his order for the engine and tried to gain permission for its shipment to America. The permit was finally obtained, the engine built, and in March, 1805, Fulton notes in his account-book that he paid the fee at the Treasury “on receiving permission to ship the engine for America.” In January he had paid five hundred and forty-eight pounds for the cylinder and parts of the engine, and in March four hundred and seventy-six pounds, eleven shillings, sixpence for the copper boiler. Some years ago, a story “went the rounds” of the newspapers that the boiler for Fulton’s American boat was made from melted copper pennies. Coins of 1799 to 1804 were rare and this fiction was invented to explain the scarcity, but Fulton’s notebook contradicts it. Copper was hard to get, and expensive, but Fulton found it and paid for it,—full value too, one would say! The engine preceded Fulton across the water by a year, for Fulton stayed in England until the autumn of 1806. It lay at the Custom House for six months, and was then carted to a storage-house on South Street until the boat was built to receive it. To this period of Fulton’s life belong two interesting letters: they prove that he was ever mindful of his brother and sisters in far-away Pennsylvania, even while he was debating anxiously with English statesmen and planning a novel boat for American waters. The first letter was written to his brother-in-law, David Morris, and is full of intimate and wholesome advice for he evidently realized the shortcomings in his own early education. Written in London, October 25th, 1805, it says in part: I wrote you on the 20th and sent you an order on John Mason, Esqr. for 300 dollars to be paid out of my dividends of the first of January 1806, which will make in the whole 900 dollars of which I desired the division as follows: 300 to Mrs. Scott, 300 to Mrs. Cook 200 to Abraham 50 to your wife 50 for sundries, as you will find detailed when you receive my letter. Having observed bad spelling and writing in the letters I have received, and knowing that such errors may be corrected with a little industry and care on winter evenings, I have desired a friend of mine at New York to send you