Volume IV Part 50 (2/2)

From Louisville onward the voyage was thrilling. The earthquake of 1811 came just after the New Orleans pa.s.sed Louisville and this changed the river channels. At another time the boat took fire and was saved with difficulty. Along the sh.o.r.e the inhabitants were torn between terror of the earthquake and fright at this monster of the waters. The crew had to contend with snags, shoals, sandbars, and other obstructions. Finally Natchez was reached and here thousands of people gathered on the bluffs to witness this triumph of science.

At last the vessel arrived at New Orleans and the first steamboat voyage on the Ohio and Mississippi was an accomplished fact. The experiment, which began two years before with the flatboat voyage of a bride and groom, ended at the metropolis of the Southwest in the marriage of the steamboat captain to Mrs. Roosevelt's maid, with whom he had fallen in love during this thrilling and historic voyage. (See Latrobe, in _Md.

Hist. Soc. Fund-Pub_. No. 6. A good summary of Latrobe's narrative is given in Preble: _Chronological History of the Origin and Development of Steam Navigation_, 77-81.)

[1126] Act of Jan. 25, 1811, _Acts of New Jersey, 1811_, 298-99.

[1127] Act of April 9, 1811, _Laws of New York, 1811_, 368-70.

[1128] _Laws of Connecticut_, May Sess. 1822, chap. XXVIII.

[1129] d.i.c.kinson, 244.

[1130] Livingston _et al._ _vs._ Van Ingen _et al._, 1 Paine, 45-46.

Brockholst Livingston, a.s.sociate Justice of the Supreme Court, sat in this case with William P. Van Ness (the friend and partisan of Burr), and delivered the opinion.

[1131] The full t.i.tle of this tribunal was the ”Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors.” It was the court of last resort, appeals lying to it from the Supreme Court of Judicature and from the Court of Chancery. It consisted of the Justices of the Supreme Court of Judicature and a number of State Senators. A more absurdly const.i.tuted court cannot well be imagined.

[1132] 9 Johnson, 558, 563.

[1133] The State Senate, House, Council of Revision, and Governor.

[1134] 9 Johnson, 572.

[1135] Those enacted in 1798, 1803, 1807, 1808, and 1811.

[1136] 9 Johnson, 573. Jay as Governor was Chairman of the Council of Revision, of which Kent was a member.

[1137] _lb._ 572.

[1138] _Ib._ 573. (Italics the author's.)

[1139] 9 Johnson, 574.

[1140] _Ib._ 575-76.

[1141] _Ib._ 577-78.

[1142] 9 Johnson, 578, 580.

[1143] _Ib._ 582-88.

[1144] All the Senators concurred except two, Lewis and Townsend, who declined giving opinions because of relations.h.i.+p with the parties to the action. (_Ib._ 589.)

[1145] Ogden protested against the Livingston-Fulton steamboat monopoly in a Memorial to the New York Legislature. (See Duer, 94-97.) A committee was appointed and reported the facts as Ogden stated them; but concluded that, since New York had granted exclusive steamboat privileges to Livingston, ”the honor of the State requires that its faith should be preserved.” However, said the committee, the Livingston-Fulton boats ”are in substance the invention of John Fitch,”

to whom the original monopoly was granted, after the expiration of which ”the right to use” steamboats ”became common to all the citizens of the United States.” Moreover, the statements upon which rested the Livingston monopoly of 1798 ”were not true in fact,” Fitch having forestalled the claims of the Livingston pretensions. (_Ib._ 103-04.)

[1146] 4 Johnson's _Chancery Reports_, 50-51. The reader must not confuse the two series of Reports by Johnson; one contains the decisions of the Court of Errors; the other, those of the Court of Chancery.

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