while the power of the Legislature to grant the steamboat monopoly
was denied, and a company was formed at Albany to establish another line
of steam passage boats on the Hudson, between that city and New York.
The State grantees filed a bill in equity, and prayed for an injunction,
which was refused by Chancellor Lansing, on the ground that the act of
the State Legislature was repugnant to the Constitution of the United
States, and against common right. This decree was unanimously reversed
by the Court of Errors, and a compromise was effected with the Albany
company by an assignment to them of the right to employ steam on the
waters of Lake Champlain.

"Legislative aid was again invoked, and an act was passed directing
peremptorily the allowance of an injunction on the prayer of the State
grantees, and the seizure of any hostile boat at the commencement of the
suit. Litigation was thus effectually arrested in New York, though by an
arbitrary and unconstitutional enactment, and the waters of the State
remained in the exclusive possession of Fulton and his partner during
the lifetime of the former. A similar controversy with Colonel Aaron
Ogden, of New Jersey, was compromised by advantageous concessions, which
converted the opponent of the monopoly into its firmest friend, and left
him many years afterward the defeated party in the famous suit of
Gibbons and Ogden, in the Supreme Court of the United States."

In January, 1815, Fulton was summoned to Trenton, New Jersey, as a
witness in one of the numerous suits which grew out of the efforts to
break down his monopoly. During his examination he was very much
exposed, as the hall of the Legislature was uncommonly cold. In
returning home, he crossed the Hudson in an open boat, and was detained
on the river several hours. This severe exposure brought on an attack of
sickness, which for a short time confined him to his bed. The steam
frigate, then almost ready for her engines, occasioned him great anxiety
at the time, and before he had fairly recovered his strength he went to
the ship-yard to give some directions to the workmen employed on her,
and thus exposed himself again to the inclemency of the weather. In a
few days his indisposition prostrated him again, and, growing rapidly
worse, he died on the 24th of February, 1815, at the age of fifty
years. His death was universally regarded as a national calamity, and
appropriate honors were paid to his memory by the General Gove