“The opposition boats on the Hudson, which the owners had built to rival the steam-boats, were at first to have been propelled by a pendulum, which, according to the calculations of some ingenious gentlemen, would give a greater power than steam, but when their boat came to be put in the water they soon found that their wheels, which were turned with great facility and velocity while their vessel was on the stocks, could not be made to perform their functions without the application of a great power to the pendulum. The projectors were utterly at a loss to account for so extraordinary a phenomenon, and could not conceive why the wheels, which had moved so much to their satisfaction when they were resisted only by the air, should require so much force when they turned in the water, and were to drag the weight of the vessel. But having by actual experiment determined that a pendulum would not supply the place of steam, and knowing no other way of supplying steam than that which they saw practised in the Fulton boats, they adopted all their machinery with some very insignificant alterations, which were made with no other view than to give those persons who had set out by professing to make a pendulum-boat a pretence for claiming to be the inventors of improvements in steam-boats.” Fulton, without doubt, designed and superintended the construction of the first steam war-vessel. On the 20th June, 1814, the keel was laid, and in little more than four months, that is, on the 29th October, she was launched from the yard of Adam and Noah Brown, her able and active architects. The scene exhibited on that occasion was magnificent. It happened on one of the brightest autumnal days. “Spectators,” says Colden, “crowded the surrounding shores, and were seen upon the hills which limited the beautiful prospect. The river and bay were filled with vessels of war, dressed in all their variety of colours, in compliment to the occasion. In the midst of these was the enormous floating mass whose bulk and unwieldy form seemed to render her as unfit for motion as the land batteries which were saluting her. Through the fleet of vessels which occupied this part of the harbour were seen gliding in every direction several of our large steam-boats, of the burden of three or four hundred tons. These, with bands of music, and crowds of gay and joyous company, were winding through passages left by the anchored vessels as if they were moved by enchantment. The heart could not have been human that did not share in the general enthusiasm expressed by the loud shouts of the multitude. He could not have been a worthy citizen, who did not then say to himself, with pride and exultation, ‘This is my country!’ and when he looked on the man whose single genius had created the most interesting objects of the scene, ‘This is my countryman!’”