For: [Letter] 1815 January 28, Trenton [to] Nathaniel Cutting / Robert Fulton.
[1 recto] copy Trenton. Jan. 28. 1815 Nathaniel Cutting[1] It is not more than ten minutes since I have heard a very extraordinary letter of yours to Mr Fairfax read to the House assembly in this city, the whole of which is false and malignant, evidently done and with much exactness and care to injure me and gratify Thornton[2] Fairfax and other of my ignorant enemies; you state positively that I pirated the Mr Cartwright's[3] rope machine and sold it to you as wholly my own, this is untrue. I always informed you that Mr Cartwright had made such a machine. I introduced you to him by letter, would a pirate wishing to conceal his fault have done so! I made one from memory with some alterations. the laws of France permitted patents for imported inventions. you were to give me something for it. I lent you in your distress more than I ever received, but if you had reason to complain of this transaction why not do it to me within the last ten years? You say I received from Aaron Vail[4] Fitch's[5] papers and had them for Several months and that you can well believe it because [1 verso] if I pirated one machine, why not pirate another and would use Fitch's combinations when I felt thatwe wereno one living could detect the plagiarism. This is malignant in the highest degree and as false as it is base. I never saw a paper or plan of Fitch's until I saw his patents in the office at Washington in 1807, but if I had seen all his papers which he ever had with his specifications and drawings such as I have ever seen in the possession of Mr Fairfax they could teach me nothing. For Fitch knew nothing he was as Thornton and about as mad. I have now seen the collected and united efforts of Ogden, Fairfax, Thornton and Delacy with your aid to destroy me_ I have seen in glaring colours your combined wickedness and fortunately for me your weakness, the evidence of which transform his own rating and confessions he was mad had no science, with one exact scientific idea of a steamboat, and acknowledges his failure. But Sir I despise your efforts and that of the miserable ephemeral train whom envy and not talent urge on to attack me_ what could induce you to enter there ranks of injustice I can not conceive. I always treated you with friendship and certainly I have at times relieved your pressing wants. you have stepped forward unpro- voked to be my enemy. I accept the war. I defy you or any living being to stain my character with [2 recto] one unfair, ungenerous or illiberal act toward my Friends or of assuming to myself in any way what is not my own and I will not lose an instant in making you answerable for a libel on my character as a man of honor. While I labour for the Government gratis it is to be seen if clerks at the War and Patents Office shall be paid to calumniate me and involve me in lawsuits to consume my time and defeat my best exertions for my country__ Thornton has published your calumny in a pamphletand^each of you shall make atonement_ Robert Fulton
[1]Perhaps this is the Nathaniel Jutting referred to in the 1857 book by Thomas Westcott. "Steamboat Experiments in Europe and America," The Life of John Fitch, Inventor of the Steamboat, December 1996, <http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/westcott/chapter22.htm> (21 September 2005). According to the author, Jutting wrote a letter to Fernando Fairfax describing his conversation with Aaron Vail, U.S. Consul at L'Orient in France.
[2]See United States, "Dr. William Thornton," The Architect of the Capitol.
<http://www.aoc.gov/aoc/architects/thornton.cfm> (21 September 2005) for more information on William Thornton (1759-1828), physician, architect, painter, inventor, and Superintendent of the United States Patent Office (1802 to 1828). Kenneth W. Dobyns, "The Feud Between Dr. Thornton and Robert Fulton," History of the United States Patent Office.
[3]Edmund Cartwright was a British poet and inventor. For more information see the British Broadcasting System, "Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823)," Historic Figures <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/cartwright_edmund.shtml> (22 September 2005).
[4]See Westcotts "Disasters—Lukewarmness of the Company—U.S. Patent," in The Life of John Fitch, Inventor of the Steamboat, December 1996, <http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/westcott/chapter19.htm> (21 September 2005) for Aaron Vail's relationship with Fitch.
[5]John Fitch (1743-1798), gunsmith, surveyor, and inventor of the steamboat. See Westcott's online book <http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/westcott/> for additional biographic information. Fitch's inability to attain economic benefits of steam navigation diminished his contributions as the inventor of America's first steamboat. Robert Fulton (1765-1815) is credited with making steamboat travel commercially viable. Public Broadcasting Service. "Robert Fulton," in They Made America. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/fulton_hi.html (21 September 2005).
Transcribed by Joseph P. Eldred
Edited and annotated by Julia Maserjian
