secret "until he saw the effect of an application he was about to
make to the Assembly of this State, for a reward." The
application was successful, and Rumsey was awarded a monopoly in
Virginia waters for ten years.

Fitch, on the other hand, when he applied to Congress in 1785,
desired merely to obtain official encouragement and intended to
allow his invention to be used by all comers. Meeting only with
rebuff, he realized that his only hope of organizing a company
that could provide working capital lay in securing monopolistic
privileges. In 1786 he accordingly applied to the individual
States and secured the sole right to operate steamboats on the
waterways of New Jersey, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia. How different would have been the story of the
steamboat if Congress had accepted Fitch at his word and created
a precedent against monopolistic rights on American rivers!

Fitch, in addition to the high purpose of devoting his new
invention to the good of the nation without personal
considerations, must be credited with perceiving at the very
beginning the peculiar importance of the steamboat to the
American West. His original application to Congress in 1785
opened: "The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of
Congress, an attempt he has made to facilitate the internal
Navigation of the United States, adapted especially to the Waters
of the Mississippi." At another time with prophetic vision he
wrote: "The Grand and Principle object must be on the Atlantick,
which would soon overspread the wild forests of America with
people, and make us the most oppulent Empire on Earth. Pardon me,
generous public, for suggesting ideas that cannot be dijested at