At a second visit, we first went on board the steam-frigate, Fulton the First; this vessel is entirely disarmed, and serves as a receiving ship. She is a floating battery, and was to carry thirty thirty-two pounders. Her sides are six feet thick, made of oak timbers, which are fixed upon and crossing each other, so that the vessel may be compared to a floating block-house. Her machinery resembles that of a team-boat: she has two parallel keels, between these an engine of one hundred and twenty-horse power is fixed, and one large wheel is moved by it. The vessel is very spacious: in several places reverberatory furnaces may be added, in order to heat balls red-hot. Before this frigate was dismantled, she carried two small masts with triangular sails, but the commodore has substituted large masts with the usual sails, for the instruction of the sailors. The machinery had been taken out for some months, and placed in an arsenal on the wharf: the place it had occupied was covered with boards, to make a common deck for the sailors. Since that time an upper deck has been built, upon which are comfortable state-rooms for the officers. This frigate has been spoken of as a real miracle; that she presented towards the enemy a forest of swords and lances, and threw a stream of boiling water, &c. all of these are stories. Her construction during the latter part of the war with England was merely an experiment, though it caused the English a great deal of anxiety. All competent judges with whom I conversed concerning this vessel, objected to her and were of opinion that this large body could only be used to defend straits. She never was at sea, and some feared that she would be unfit for it. Moreover, as the navy-board at Washington having objections to the further application of steam to ships of war, it is probable that they will discontinue the building of more steam-frigates, although the machinery of a second is already finished and placed in the magazine.
We were likewise on board of the two ships of the line, Ohio and Franklin. The Ohio is of a new construction, and has not yet been in service; the Franklin and Washington, however, have already made several voyages. The sides of the Ohio are thicker than those of the other ships, and her decks higher: all these men of war have not the modern round, but broad sterns, in each of which is a battery of twelve guns. Only one of the frigates, still standing on the stocks, has an elliptical stern, which unites the defensive power of the round, with the elegance of the broad sterns.