A committee of the American Institute, by whom this remarkable vessel was examined, thus concluded their report:--"Your Committee take leave to present the Princeton as every way worthy the highest honors of the Institute. She is a sublime conception, most successfully realized,--an effort of genius skilfully executed,--a grand _unique_ combination, honorable to the country, as creditable to all engaged upon her. Nothing in the history of mechanics surpasses the inventive genius of Captain Ericsson, unless it be the moral daring of Captain Stockton, in the adoption of so many novelties at one time." We may add that in the Princeton was exhibited the first successful application of screw-propulsion to a ship of war, and that she was the first steamship ever built with the machinery below the water-line and out of the reach of shot. Ericsson spent the best part of two years in his labors upon the Princeton. Besides furnishing the general plan of the ship and supplying her in every department with his patented improvements, he prepared, with his own hand, the working-drawings for every part of the steam-machinery, propelling-apparatus, and steering-apparatus in detail, and superintended their whole construction and arrangement, giving careful and exact instructions as to the most minute particulars. In so doing, he was compelled to make frequent journeys from New York to Sandy Hook and Philadelphia, involving no small amount of trouble and expense. For the use of his patent rights in the engine and propeller, he had, at the suggestion of Captain Stockton, refrained from charging the usual fees, consenting to accept, as full satisfaction, whatever the Government, after testing the inventions, should see fit to pay. He never imagined, however, that his laborious services as engineer were to go unrequited, or that his numerous inventions and improvements, unconnected with the engine and propeller, were to be furnished gratuitously. Yet, when, after the Princeton, as we have seen, had been pronounced on all hands a splendid success, Ericsson presented his bill to the Navy Department,--not for the patent-fees in question, but for the bare repayment of his expenditures, and compensation for his time and labor in the service of the United States,--he was informed that his claim could not be allowed; it could not be recognized as a "legal claim." It was not denied that the services alleged had been rendered,--that the work for which compensation was asked had been done by Ericsson, and well done,--nor that the United States were in the enjoyment of the unpaid results of his labor and invention. A claim based upon such considerations might, it would seem, have been brought within the definition of a legal claim. But if not admissible under the strict rules of the Navy Department, it was certainly an equitable demand against the United States; and Ericsson could not believe that the representatives of the great American people would stand upon