STEAMBOAT INVENTOR JOHN FITCH BATTLES FOR CONTROL OF THE HUDSON
Early reprint of a pamphlet originally published by steamboat inventor John Fitch in Philadelphia, 1788, refuting James Rumsey’s claim to having invented the steamboat: "The Original Steam-boat Supported; or, A Reply to Mr. James Rumsey’s Pamphlet, Shewing the True Priority of John Fitch, and the False Datings, &c. of James Rumsey". Fitch opens his reply thus: “It is the duty of every man not only to avoid the commission of a crime, but so to conduct himself through life as to bear the strictest scrutiny. In a pamphlet published by Mr. James Rumsey and lately circulated in this City, as well as probably in other states, I am charged as the perpetrator of crimes attrocious in their nature, but of which my conscience fully acquits me. It is an exercise of malevolence in the extreme thus publicly to prefer charges against an innocent person without previously knowing or enquiring for the defence of the supposed offender, and shews an inability in the accuser to support his charges." In the late-1780s James Rumsey and John Fitch appealed to the various state legislatures for monopolies to operate steamboats on the rivers, bays and lakes of those states. Chapter 57 of the Laws of 1787 gave "John Fitch, the sole right and advantage of making and employing for a limited time, the steam boat by him lately invented." Disbound, fine.