Fulton asked a reward for each vessel he destroyed, the re-imbursement of the price of his ship (40,000 francs), and lastly a patent giving himself and his crew the quality of belligerents, so that if they were captured they would not be hanged as pirates. That submarine warfare was considered by some “immoral” at the time is evident from the statement of Admiral Pleville le Pelle, the Minister of Marine. “It seems impossible to serve a Commission for belligerency to men who employ such a method of destroying the fleet of the enemy.” As Fulton was equally unsuccessful in his effort to interest Napoleon in steam navigation, the disappointed inventor crossed the Channel in order to discover whether the English would show themselves any readier to grasp new ideas, and would prove capable of foreseeing the possibilities of his inventions. It was in May, 1804, that Fulton came to England, and from some accounts it would appear that the English Government, alarmed at Fulton’s plans, invited him, at the suggestion of Earl Stanhope, to lay his ideas before them. The inventor explained to the naval authorities that his system rendered above-water fleets unnecessary, but they did not at all relish the idea of fighting beneath the waves. Mr. Pitt, however, then Prime Minister, was very much taken with the American and his torpedoes, and appointed a Commission to watch certain experiments. The Commission consisted of Mr. Pitt, Lords Mulgrave, Melville, and Castlereagh, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Cavendish, Admiral Sir Howe Popham (the only naval man in the Commission), Major Congreve, and Sir John Rennie. Although Mr. Pitt and some few others were disposed to look with favour on Fulton’s devices, the Commission as a whole were of the same opinion as Admiral Earl St. Vincent, who remarked that it was foolish for Pitt to encourage “that gimcrack, for so he was laying the foundation for doing away with the Navy, on which depended the strength and prestige of Great Britain.” Thus Fulton’s plans were declared to be unpracticable by the Commission. Mr. Pitt still refused to relinquish his faith in Fulton, and on October 15, 1805, he caused an experiment to be made on an old Danish brig which was blown to pieces by 170 lbs. of powder. Even this wonderful result failed to appeal to those in authority, for while they recognised that torpedoes and submarine boats might prove useful to weaker nations, and might be used with effect by them, they declared that such weapons of warfare could have no place in the naval equipment of the Mistress of the Seas. It is said that Fulton was offered a large sum of money to suppress his inventions, but this is doubtful. Full details of Fulton’s boat and various confidential reports are said to be amongst the secret papers of the Record Office.