this day."

Foremost in exhibiting high civic and patriotic motives, Fitch
was also foremost in appreciating the importance of the steamboat
in the expansion of American trade. This significance was also
clearly perceived by his brilliant successor, Robert Fulton. That
the West and its commerce were always predominant in Fulton's
great schemes is proved by words which he addressed in 1803 to
James Monroe, American Ambassador to Great Britain: "You have
perhaps heard of the success of my experiments for
navigating boats by steam engines and you will feel the
importance of establishing such boats on the Mississippi and
other rivers of the United States as soon as possible." Robert
Fulton had been interested in steamboats for a period not
definitely known, possibly since his sojourn in Philadelphia in
the days of Fitch's early efforts. That he profited by the other
inventor's efforts at the time, however, is not suggested by any
of his biographers. He subsequently went to London and gave
himself up to the study and practice of engineering. There he
later met James Rumsey, who came to England in 1788, and by him
no doubt was informed, if he was not already aware, of the
experiments and models of Rumsey and Fitch. He obtained the loan
of Fitch's plans and drawings and made his own trial of various
existing devices, such as oars, paddles, duck's feet, and Fitch's
endless chain with "resisting-boards" attached. Meanwhile Fulton
was also devoting his attention to problems of canal construction
and to the development of submarine boats and submarine
explosives. He was engaged in these researches in France in 1801
when the new American minister, Robert R. Livingston, arrived,
and the two men soon formed a friendship destined to have a vital