that was not undertaken without trepidation. But, despite the
fact that a great storm arose, the Phoenix made the trip in
safety; and continued for many years thereafter to ply the
Delaware between Philadelphia and Trenton.

Robert Fulton, like many and many another great inventor, from
Leonardo da Vinci down to the present time, was also an artist.
He was born November 14, 1765, at Little Britain, Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania, of that stock which is so often miscalled
"Scotch-Irish." He was only a child when his father died, leaving
behind him a son who seems to have been much more interested in
his own ideas than in his schoolbooks. Even in his childhood
Robert showed his mechanical ability. There was a firm of noted
gunsmiths in Lancaster, in whose shops he made himself at home
and became expert in the use of tools. At the age of fourteen he
applied his ingenuity to a heavy fishing boat and equipped it
with paddle-wheels, which were turned by a crank, thus greatly
lightening the labor of moving it.

At the age of seventeen young Fulton moved to Philadelphia and
set up as a portrait painter. Some of the miniatures which he
painted at this time are said to be very good. He worked hard,
made many good friends, including Benjamin Franklin, and
succeeded financially. He determined to go to Europe to study--if
possible under his fellow Pennsylvanian, Benjamin West, then
rising into fame in London. The West and the Fulton families had
been intimate, and Fulton hoped that West would take him as a
pupil. First buying a farm for his mother with a part of his
savings, he sailed for England in 1786, with forty guineas in his
pocket. West received him not only as a pupil but as a guest in