FULTON, ROBERT. (1765-1815). American engineer and inventor. Remarkable and Highly Important Autograph Memorandum Signed, “Robert Fulton”. 2 ½ pages, legal folio. [Washington, D.C.] December 1814. Written just a scant 7 weeks prior to his untimely death, Fulton has penned:

“Memorandum of an agreement entered into this 27th day of December 1814—between the Honorable James Monroe Secretary of War for the U. States of America, at the first part, and Robert Fulton of the City of N York on behalf of himself and the owners of the Vesuvius, the Etna, and the New Orleans and Nateby steam boats, trading and intended to have on the river Mississippi, and the Buffalo steam boat intended to trade on the Ohio river of the 2nd part—when as it is the interest of the U States that the said steam boats should be put into operation with all possible dispatch for the purpose of transporting troops and the munitions of war on said rivers.

It is hereby agreed by the party of the first part to immediately advance out of the Treasury of the U States, and on account of the U States, to the said party of the second part—forty thousand dollars in Treasury notes, for the purpose of completing and bringing into operation said steam boats, and on the following conditions.

That during the present war between Great Britain and these U States and until said forty thousand dollars shall be repaid is satisfied by the U States by the passage of troops as freight in said steam boats, as in the many circulating medicines of the U States. All officers and troops finding their own provisions and bedding shall be transported in the steam boats from Louisville to New Orleans down the stream for ten dollars each—and from N. Orleans to Louisville up the stream for twenty dollars each—in all cases of shorter distances each person shall be transported for one cent a mile down the stream—and two cents a mile up the stream. All ordinance military stores, and munitions of war belonging to these U States, which can be conveyed in steam boats, and of which the captains of each boat shall be the judge—shall be transported down the stream from Louisville to N. Orleans at the rate of one dollar per ton for one hundred miles or up the stream at the rate of three dollars a ton for each hundred miles.

In the Buffalo steam boat on the Ohio River—officers and men finding their own provisions and bedding, shall be conveyed down the river from Pittsburgh to Louisville for four dollars each or up the stream the same distance for eight dollars each and in like proportions for short distances.

Military stores, provisions and munitions of war shall be conveyed down the stream from Pittsburgh to Louisville for fifty cents per hundred weight and up the stream the same distance for one dollar and fifty cents, the hundred weight and in like proportions for shorter distances.

And if within five years from this date the said sum of forty thousand dollars shall not have been carried and compensated by the Government of the U States, by the passage of troops and transport of munitions of war or aforesaid, the whole or any deficiency of said forty thousand dollars not satisfied or aforesaid shall be paid by the said Robert Fulton and the stock holders in said boats to the Government of the United States. ‘Signed’ Robert Fulton.”

The Royal Navy had been boarding United States ships in search of deserters and illegally forcing American citizens into the Royal navy for more than a decade when the United States finally declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812. With this declaration, the war of 1812, popularly referred to as America’s “Second War of Independence,” had officially begun. After two years of conflict at sea and on land, neither country seemed poised for victory, and the two countries finally agreed to peace talks.

The British arranged for this meeting to take place in Ghent (now in Belgium) believing any agreement with the fledgling American nation would prove profitable. British negotiators initially proposed a neutral territory for Native Americans around the Great Lakes, a locality that would ensure that the British and their tribal allies would have access to navigation on the Mississippi. Additionally, the British demanded ownership of Fort Niagara, and requested that the US surrender fortifications and naval forces on the Great Lakes. The U.S. negotiators, aware that these proposals would impede the country’s westward expansion, refused this proposal. The American delegates’ counter-proposal focused on the numerous U.S. crew members forced into the British Navy. It sought compensation for the ships the British had seized, and demanded that the British adhere to international blockade rules. As the debate between the delegations continued, word reached the panel regarding British failures at Baltimore, the battle which inspired Francis Scott Key to compose the “Star Spangled Banner,” and at Fort Erie. With these two victories, the tide of war seemed to be turning in America’s favor. Negotiations between the two nations lagged, and the British agreed to leave all unsettled points for future negotiations. The American delegates prepared themselves for their native soil believing they had triumphed.

Although the peace treaty restored pre-war conditions and ended hostilities, news of the agreement was slow to reach U.S. soil. During the two months the news took to arrive, an American victory appeared ever more remote. The nation’s military faced one of its biggest challenges of the war when the British forces from Chesapeake Bay were reassigned the West Indies where 12,000 British veterans of the Napoleonic War were already stationed. Realizing the British intended to march this force upon the port of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River, the US government placed Major General Andrew Jackson in command of the city’s defense. Led by Sir Edward Pakenham, the British managed to land an undetected party off the coast, and on January 8, 1815, launched an attack against a strongly fortified position held by Jackson’s troops. Pakeham’s troops included some of the best regiments and numbered 8000; Jackson commanded 5000 militiamen, mostly residents of Kentucky and Tennessee. The British advance was doomed from the start. In just 25 minutes, their troops were cut back by 2000 men, picked off as they advanced across a quarter mile of open ground. Occurring several weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, Jackson’s decisive victory at New Orleans may not have had an effect on the final outcome of the War of 1812, but it played an important part in building the confidence of the American military and the nation.

Once again, news of this victory traveled slowly, and Americans in the north grew anxious about the fall of New Orleans and the possible dissolution of peace talks in Ghent. Federalist Delegates from New England states who opposed the war met at the Hartford Convention and discussed the possible dissolution of the Union. Representatives were soon sent to the capital to present their grievances before Congress, but word of Jackson’s victory arrived first, as had news that a British warship had sailed into New York City harbor under a flag of truce on February 11th carrying the American negotiators from Ghent with a peace treaty in hand. With the talks settled, the presence of the Hartford Convention’s anti-war delegation in the nation’s capital seemed ludicrous. Although these representatives soon returned to their home states, the Hartford Convention nonetheless became synonymous with disunion and secession. As a result, the anti-war Federalist Party was ruined as a national force. The War of 1812 quickly became a historic triumph for the United States: The nation had battled the British Empire to a standstill, and the inventor that worked to ensure success, Robert Fulton, soon became a national hero.

As a scientist, Fulton had a limited early education; but he possessed an uncanny ability to see the possibilities of an invention on the grand scale. Born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he moved to London at the age of 21. While there he worked on a project for the improvement of canal navigation, as well as torpedoes, submarines and mines. Subsequently, he moved to France, where, in addition to continuing work on his submarine, he began working on a prototype for the steamboat in 1802. Fulton continued to experiment with naval weapons, but as the years passed he devoted more and more of his attention to the commercial applications of the steamboat. In 1807, Fulton’s first steamship left New York City for Albany; within a year there were regular weekly steamboat runs between the two cities. The potential for the steamboat’s commercial applications became apparent to Fulton, and he had a second boat was built in 1809. By 1814, he and related companies controlled steamboats on the Hudson, Delaware, Potomac, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers as well as steamboats, steam ferries, and a workshop near New York City. Due in large part to the increased ease of travel facilitated by the steamboat, the nation soon doubled in size. Americans poured westward, and New Orleans saw yearly steamboat arrivals increase from 20 in 1814 to 1200 in 1834. Sadly for the fledgling United States, Fulton never lived to see his dream become reality; he died at the height of his fame in 1815.

This remarkable document represents a unique opportunity for the collector or institution to capture herein a monumental focal point in the development of the United States, with the War of 1812, and the U.S. government’s westward development of the United States converging in a single outstanding document.

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