The _Holland_ was purchased by the United States Government on April 11, 1900, for $150,000. She had cost her builders, exclusive of any office expenses or salaries of officers, $236,615.43. But it had been a profitable investment for the Holland Torpedo-boat Company, for on August 25, the United States navy contracted with it for the construction of six more submarines. And in the autumn of the same year, though it was not announced to the public till March 1, 1901, five other _Hollands_ were ordered through the agency of Vickers Sons, and Maxim by the British admiralty. Soon every maritime nation was either buying _Hollands_ or paying royalties on the inventor’s patents, and building bigger, faster, better submarines every year. The original _Holland_ had outlived her fighting value when she was condemned by Secretary Daniels in June, 1915, to be broken up and sold as junk. There is still room in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for that worthless and meaningless relic, the _Intelligent Whale_, but there was none for the _Holland_ submarine, whose place in history is with the _Clairmont_ and the _Monitor_. John P. Holland withdrew in 1904 from the Holland Torpedo-boat Company, which has since become merged with the Electric Boat Company, that builds most of the submarines for the United States navy, and many for the navies of foreign powers. Like most other great inventive geniuses, Holland was not a trained engineer, and it was perhaps inevitable that disputes should have arisen between him and his associates as to the carrying out of his ideas. His last years were embittered by the belief that the submarines of to-day were distorted and worthless developments of his original type. Whether or not he was mistaken, only time can tell. That to John P. Holland, more than to any other man since David Bushnell and Robert Fulton, the world owes the modern submarine, cannot be denied. His death, on August 12, 1914, was but little noticed in the turmoil and confusion of the first weeks of the great European War. But when the naval histories of that war are written, his name will not be forgotten. CHAPTER VIII THE LAKE SUBMARINES