_Bonaparte's patronage withdrawn._--Notwithstanding the apparent success, and enormous power of Fulton's projects, on account of a failure on his part to destroy one of the English Channel fleet, at the end of 1801, Bonaparte at once withdrew his support and aid.
Disgusted with this treatment, and having been previously pressed by some of England's most influential men, to bring his projects to that country, so that the English might reap the benefit of his wonderful schemes, Fulton left France, and arrived in London, in May, 1804.
_Pitt supports Fulton._--Mr. Pitt, then Prime Minister, was much struck with Fulton's various schemes of submarine warfare, and after examining one of his infernal machines, or torpedoes, exclaimed, "that if introduced into practice, it could not fail to annihilate all military marines."[B]
Though having secured the approval of Mr. Pitt, and a few other members of the Government, he was quite unable to induce the English to accept his schemes in toto, and at once employ them in the Naval service.
Twice Fulton attempted to destroy French men-of-war, lying in the harbour of Boulogne, by means of his drifting torpedoes, but each time he failed, owing as he then explained, and which afterwards proved to be the case, to the simple mistake of having made his machines specifically heavier than water, thus preventing the current from carrying them under a vessel's bottom.
_Destruction of the "Dorothea."_--Though in each of the above-mentioned attempts Fulton succeeded in exploding his machines, and though on the 15th October, 1805, in the presence of a numerous company of Naval and other scientific men, he completely demolished a stout brig, the _Dorothea_, off Walmer Castle, by means of his drifting torpedoes, similar to those employed by him at Boulogne, but considerably improved, still the English Government refused to have anything further to do with him or his schemes.
England, at that time, being mistress of the seas, it was clearly her interest to make the world believe that Fulton's schemes were impracticable and absurd.
Earl St. Vincent, in a conversation with Fulton, told him in very strong language, "that Pitt was a fool for encouraging a mode of warfare, which, if successful, would wrest the trident from those who then claimed to bear it, as the sceptre of supremacy on the ocean."[C]