Meals were served without extra charge, and baggage weighing sixty pounds was carried free with each adult passenger. The freight rate to Albany was three cents a pound. The _Clermont_ left New York on her first trip as packet at 6 o'clock in the morning on September 4, 1807, carrying twelve through and three way passengers. It was noted in the papers of the period that people were very much incensed because the steamer left her pier promptly at the hour advertised. They had been accustomed to having the river-sloops wait for them. Morrison points out, in his _American Steam Navigation_, that no single detail of the _Clermont_ was invented by Fulton. As the _North American Review_ of July, 1838, says, the "great and surpassing merit of Fulton consisted not so much in absolute originality as in the skill with which he availed himself of all the theoretic knowledge of the day, and applied it to practical purposes." His choice of location for the inauguration of steam navigation is to be noted, for New York and the Hudson afforded an amount of traffic perhaps more valuable than could have been found elsewhere for such a vessel. Moreover, he was fortunate in making the trial at a time when the public were sufficiently enlightened to appreciate the value of steam. The number of passengers and the amount of freight carried by the _Clermont_ in the fall of 1807 led Fulton to rebuild her during the winter, in order to give her greater capacity. Having a monopoly of the waters by act of the legislature (the monopoly was contrary to the Constitution of the United States, but the courts did not decide the matter until 1824), Fulton had no trouble in raising capital, and with the growth of traffic a new steamer, the _Car of Neptune_, was placed on the river in 1808. The _Paragon_ was built in 1811, and in 1812 the _Fire Fly_ was built for way traffic. On the whole, however, the evolution of steam navigation on the Hudson was slow, at least so far as improvement in the vessels employed was concerned, until the monopoly was broken. For Fulton died in 1815, and his associates were not progressive. In 1825 an opposition line put on two steamers that were much superior to those of the old line, and in 1827 they added a third. In this year Robert L. Stevens, a son of John Stevens, put a third line of steamers on the river, and in 1828 some Albany capitalists sought a share of the traffic with a steamer called the _De Witt Clinton_ that made a record of more than fourteen miles an hour between Albany and New York. In 1832 the companies on the river consolidated, and used the superfluous boats in a night line that was successful from the first.