CHAPTER XII

FULTON’S SUBMARINE BOATS

“What will become of navies, and where will sailors be found to man ships of war, when it is a physical certainty that they may at any moment be blown into the air by means of diving-boats, against which no human foresight can guard them?”—M. ST. AUBIN (in 1802).

Robert Fulton was born in 1765 in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, and died at New York on February 24, 1815. In the year 1796 Fulton went to Paris, residing at the house of Joel Barlow, then resident minister for the United States, for seven years. While in Paris two projects occupied a large portion of his time. The first was a carcass, or box, filled with combustibles which was to be propelled under water and made to explode beneath the bottom of a vessel.

The second was a submarine boat. In 1797 Fulton submitted his vessel to the approval of the Government of the Directory, promising to furnish them with an agent by which they could dispose of their enemies, particularly British, in all parts of the world. A Commission appointed to examine his ideas reported favourably on them, but the Minister of the Marine would have nothing to do with them. Fulton then made a model of his submarine, which met with the approval of another Commission, but again the Minister of Marine was obdurate. Fulton now tried the Dutch Government, but they did not look with any favour on the new methods of under-water warfare.

Three years later (in 1800), Fulton approached Napoleon, who appeared to think well of his schemes, for he appointed La Place, Mouge, and Volney to examine them, and also gave him 10,000 francs to carry out experiments.

In May, 1801, Fulton built his first submarine boat, the _Nautilus_. She made her first trial on the Seine opposite the Invalides. Fulton and one sailor formed the crew and with nothing but a candle to light the interior, they remained submerged twenty minutes. On coming to the surface they found that the current had carried them some considerable distance down the river, so again sinking beneath the surface Fulton steered his vessel to the point of departure. On July 3, 1801, Fulton embarked with three companions on board his “plunging boat” in the harbour of Brest; the four men descended in the _Nautilus_ a depth of 23 feet, which seemed to be the greatest depth the boat would stand. They remained below in total darkness for one hour. At subsequent descents Fulton tried to employ candles, but found they destroyed the vitality of the air. Bulls-eyes were then inserted in the top of the boat, and these alleviated, to a certain extent, the prevailing gloom.

Once Fulton with three persons is said to have stayed for six hours at a depth of 5 feet by the aid of a copper globe of 1 cubic foot capacity “containing 200 atmospheres”; on another occasion he sailed out of the harbour, then quite suddenly lowered his mast, and disappeared from view, showing how quickly he could submerge his craft.

The _Nautilus_ was a cigar-shaped boat about 7 feet in diameter. The hull was of copper, but supported by iron ribs. It had one mast, a mainsail, and a jib, which moved her at the rate of two miles an hour on the surface, and were stowed in two minutes when preparing to dive. Under the water the vessel was moved by the exertions of two men, the “propelling engine” consisting of a wheel rotated by a hand-winch, at the rate of 2½ miles an hour. A third man steered from a small conning tower while Fulton governed the position of the boat by regulating the machine which kept her balanced and determined her depth below the surface. She was 21 feet 4 inches long, and was furnished with a keel under the whole length of the hull.

Having proved that man could exist for some time beneath the surface in a vessel and could steer it, Fulton made experiments with a torpedo or case of explosive. On the first occasion he blew a small ship to fragments with 20 lbs. of powder.

As he had shown his ability to blow up old hulks in French waters, Fulton proposed to build a large submarine vessel, but failed to attain official support, partly because those in authority considered that submarine explosions were not legal warfare. One of these writes that “this type of warfare carries with it the objection that those who undertake it and those against whom it is made, will all be lost. This cannot be called a gallant death.”

Fulton asked a reward for each vessel he destroyed, the re-imbursement of the price of his ship (40,000 francs), and lastly a patent giving himself and his crew the quality of belligerents, so that if they were captured they would not be hanged as pirates.

That submarine warfare was considered by some “immoral” at the time is evident from the statement of Admiral Pleville le Pelle, the Minister of Marine. “It seems impossible to serve a Commission for belligerency to men who employ such a method of destroying the fleet of the enemy.”

As Fulton was equally unsuccessful in his effort to interest Napoleon in steam navigation, the disappointed inventor crossed the Channel in order to discover whether the English would show themselves any readier to grasp new ideas, and would prove capable of foreseeing the possibilities of his inventions.

It was in May, 1804, that Fulton came to England, and from some accounts it would appear that the English Government, alarmed at Fulton’s plans, invited him, at the suggestion of Earl Stanhope, to lay his ideas before them. The inventor explained to the naval authorities that his system rendered above-water fleets unnecessary, but they did not at all relish the idea of fighting beneath the waves.

Mr. Pitt, however, then Prime Minister, was very much taken with the American and his torpedoes, and appointed a Commission to watch certain experiments. The Commission consisted of Mr. Pitt, Lords Mulgrave, Melville, and Castlereagh, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Cavendish, Admiral Sir Howe Popham (the only naval man in the Commission), Major Congreve, and Sir John Rennie.

Although Mr. Pitt and some few others were disposed to look with favour on Fulton’s devices, the Commission as a whole were of the same opinion as Admiral Earl St. Vincent, who remarked that it was foolish for Pitt to encourage “that gimcrack, for so he was laying the foundation for doing away with the Navy, on which depended the strength and prestige of Great Britain.”

Thus Fulton’s plans were declared to be unpracticable by the Commission. Mr. Pitt still refused to relinquish his faith in Fulton, and on October 15, 1805, he caused an experiment to be made on an old Danish brig which was blown to pieces by 170 lbs. of powder. Even this wonderful result failed to appeal to those in authority, for while they recognised that torpedoes and submarine boats might prove useful to weaker nations, and might be used with effect by them, they declared that such weapons of warfare could have no place in the naval equipment of the Mistress of the Seas. It is said that Fulton was offered a large sum of money to suppress his inventions, but this is doubtful. Full details of Fulton’s boat and various confidential reports are said to be amongst the secret papers of the Record Office.

In the year 1806 Fulton returned to New York and made overtures to the United States Government. Receiving some encouragement he succeeded, after many unsuccessful efforts, in blowing up a vessel which had been prepared for the purpose. Admiral Porter in 1878 wrote, “A Midshipman nowadays at our Torpedo School at Newport, would consider himself disgraced if he failed to destroy a ship of the line in ten minutes with less explosive powder, especially if the ship lay at anchor and gave him every opportunity to operate upon her.” The admiral seems to forget that Fulton was a pioneer, and laboured under every possible disadvantage in prosecuting his work.

In 1810 Congress appropriated 5,000 dollars to assist Fulton in developing his ideas. After many trials, most of which were failures, the United States brig _Argus_ was prepared for Fulton’s final experiment. By order of Commodore Rodgers, the vessel had been so protected with spars and netting reaching to the bottom as to be practically unassailable, and the attempt to blow her up by a submarine torpedo was unsuccessful, as Fulton himself acknowledged, though he could not refrain from adding that “a system then in its infancy, which compelled a hostile vessel to guard herself by such extraordinary means, could not fail of becoming a most important mode of warfare.”

Could Fulton have foreseen the manner in which his crude devices were to develop into the Whitehead torpedo and submarine boat of to-day, he would have had something to cheer him in his hours of depression.

After the failure of the _Argus_ experiment, Fulton devoted his attention to steam navigation, and was more successful in this line than in his efforts to introduce torpedo warfare, though he considered the latter a matter of greater moment than the former.

In a letter to Joel Barlow, dated New York, August 22, 1807, Fulton says, after describing his celebrated steam voyage up the Hudson:—

“However, I will not admit that it (steam navigation) is half so important as the torpedo system of defence or attack, for out of this will grow the liberty of the seas—an object of infinite importance to the welfare of America and every civilised country. But thousands of witnesses have now seen the steamboat in rapid movement and they believe; but they have not seen a ship of war destroyed by a torpedo, and they do not believe. We cannot expect people in general to have knowledge of physics or power to reason from cause to effect, but in case we have war and the enemy’s ships come into our waters, if the Government will give me reasonable means of action, I will soon convince the world that we have surer and cheaper modes of defence than they are aware of.”

Referring to the failure of Fulton to induce the various Powers to adopt his submarine boat and torpedo, Admiral Porter said (in 1878) that naval men seventy years ago, whether in this country or abroad, saw no prospect in the success of Fulton’s scheme but the destruction of the service which was then their pride and glory, and it was hardly to be wondered at that all plans to destroy ships by other means than the legitimate eighteen-pounder were looked upon with disfavour. So the torpedo slept, but in time it reappeared invested with such deadly attributes that no nation could afford to disregard its claims as the most destructive implement of naval warfare yet devised. During the “Second War of Independence” (1812–1814) some unsuccessful attacks were made by a diving vessel on British men-of-war, and this is generally understood to be one of Fulton’s vessels.

The following extract is from a work published by James Kelly in 1818.

“About this time—that is the summer of 1813—some infamous and insidious attempts were publicly encouraged for the destruction of the British men-of-war upon the coasts of America by torpedoes and other explosive machinery, as will appear from the following extract from the American newspapers.

“‘A gentleman at Norwich, U.S., has invented a diving boat, which by means of paddles he can propel under water at the rate of three miles an hour, and ascend and descend at pleasure. He has been three times under the bottom of the _Ramilies_ off New London. In the first attempt, after remaining under some time, he came to the top of the water like the porpoise for air, and as luck would have it, came up but a few feet from the stern of the _Ramilies_.

“‘He was observed by a sentinel on deck who sang out “Boat ahoy!” immediately on hearing which, the boat descended without making a reply. Seeing this an alarm gun was fired on board the ship and all hands called to quarter, the cable cut and the ship got under weigh with all possible despatch, expecting to be blown up by a torpedo.

“‘In the third attempt he came up directly under the _Ramilies_, and fastened himself and his boat to her keel, where he remained half an hour and succeeded in perforating a hole through her upper, but while engaged in screwing a torpedo to her bottom the screw broke and defeated his object for that time. So great is the alarm and fear on board the _Ramilies_ of some such stratagem being played upon them, that Commodore Hardy has withdrawn his force from before New London and keeps his ship under weigh all the time instead of lying at anchor as formerly.’”

This “dishonourable attempt,” evidently made under the sanction of the American executive, induced Sir Thomas Hardy to address letters to the public authorities of New London, and to the Government of the States of Connecticut on the subject. In these Sir Thomas Hardy states that “he is fully apprised of the efforts to destroy the _Ramilies_, and that he shall do all in his power to defeat them, but he thinks it right to notify publicly that since the attempt he had ordered on board from fifty to a hundred American prisoners of war, who in the event of the efforts to destroy the ship by torpedoes or other infernal inventions being successful, would share the fate of himself and his crew. That in future whenever a vessel was taken, the crew would be kept on board until it has ascertained that no snare was laid for the destruction of British seamen, and that the regulations would be observed when a vessel was boarded and abandoned by her crew.”

Sir Thomas adds that his example would be followed by all the commanders of his squadron.

These representations had some effect on the American public, for on the contents of the letter being known a public meeting was held, and as many of the citizens had relations and friends prisoners of war on board the British squadron, it was determined to present a remonstrance to the American executive against the further employment of torpedoes in the ordinary course of warfare.

Admiral Porter says that these submarine attacks were mostly unauthorised by the U.S. Government, and disapproved by the navy, “who preferred the more chivalric method of sinking vessels with eighteen and twenty-four pounders, or mowing down their crews with grape and canister.”

It is almost certain that the submarine craft that attacked H.M.S. _Ramilies_ as she lay off New London was one of Fulton’s boats.

In the year 1814 Fulton constructed the _Mute_, a huge submarine capable of holding a hundred men, and deriving its name from the silent engine that propelled it. The _Mute_ was 80 feet 6 inches long, 21 feet wide, and 11 feet deep. It was armoured on the top with iron sheets, beneath which was a wood lining almost a foot in thickness. Before the trials could be completed Fulton died, and thus the story of this ardent inventor’s notions concerning submarine warfare comes to a close.

In 1810 Fulton published at New York a book, “Torpedo War and Submarine Explosions,” in which he gives an account of the various devices he had contrived for blowing up ships, piers, &c., and of the actual experiments he had made. He seems to have elaborated his submarine boat after his torpedo had been invented, and his idea was that an under-water vessel would be useful in discharging torpedoes. His method of attack was to float the torpedo down to the object to be attacked, and to guide and even explode them by means of lines. He seemed not to have thought of the use of the spar torpedo as we know it to-day.