exist in the Mississippi, where there is a
redundance of wood on the banks; but the cutting and loading will be
almost as great an evil."[80]

[Footnote 80: Rep. to the Am. Philosophical Society, Phila., May,
1803. Within four years the steamboat was running. Latrobe was
architect of the Capitol at Washington, which he also rebuilt after
the British burned it in 1814.]

Mitchill, however, would not be suppressed by the fun-making
legislators or the reasoning of a conservative engineer. "I had to
encounter all their jokes and the whole of their logic," he wrote a
friend. His bill finally became a law, and Livingston, with the help
of the Doctor, placed a horizontal wheel in a well in the bottom and
centre of a boat, which propelled the water through an aperture in the
stern. The small engine, however, having an eighteen-inch cylinder and
three feet stroke, could obtain a speed of only three miles an hour,
and finding that the loss of power did not compensate for the
encumbrance of external wheels and the action of the waves, which he
hoped to escape, Livingston relinquished the plan. Four years later,
however, the Chancellor's money and Robert Fulton's genius were to
enrich the world with a discovery that has immortalised Fulton and
placed Livingston's name among the patrons of the greatest inventors.

CHAPTER VIII

OVERTHROW OF THE FEDERALISTS

1798-1800

It is difficult to select a more popular or satisfactory
administration than was Jay's first three years as governor.
Opposition growing out of his famous treaty had entirely subsided,
salutary changes in laws comforted the people, and with Hamilton's
financial system, then thoroughly understood and appreciated, came
unprecedented good times. To all appearances, therefore, Jay's
re-election in 1798 seemed assured by an increased majority, and the
announcement that Chancellor Livingston was a voluntary rival proved
something of a political shock.[81] For many years the relations
between Jay and Livingston were intimate. They had been partners in
the law, associates in the Council of Revision, colleagues in
Congress, co-workers in the formation of a state constitution, and
companions in the Poughkeepsie convention. Jay had succeeded
Livingston in 1784 as secretary of foreign affairs under the
Confederation, and while the charming Mrs. Jay was giving her now
historic dinners and suppers at 133 Broadway, her cousin, Robert R.
Livingston, of No. 3 Broadway