There were two sets of the plans. One set was held at the American Consulate in London. Very much out of reach. The other set was meant to be safe at Somerset House, among the papers of the Navy Board.
But sometime in 1819, the plans held at Somerset House disappeared. The absence was only discovered in December of that year during an annual inventory.
The clerks who worked at the Navy Board were all questioned. Finally, one poor young man admitted that he had allowed a respected gentleman a few hours alone in the underground archive during a fine day last April. The clerk had not meant for the gentleman to stay so long unattended, but the gentleman had been most insistent that he had to find some important documents and it might take several hours. And it had been the third Varnishing Day for the Exhibition across the courtyard of Somerset House at the Royal Academy of Arts and the young clerk—Reginald Moss was his name—had wanted to see firsthand the pictures hung and the artists all gathered in the Great Room. It was an exciting day as Mr. J.M.W. Turner had been there himself, and Mr. Moss had seen the artist magic up a picture from nothing on a blank canvas.
When the hapless Mr. Moss had come back across the courtyard to descend into the archive, the respected gentleman was long gone.
One bureaucrat suggested prosecuting the young clerk for treason but this was quickly dismissed out of hand by others. Ultimately, the fool was only reprimanded for carelessness and demoted. And new procedures were put in place at the Navy Board.
After all, it was difficult to argue that the plans were of any value either to the British empire or to an enemy of the empire. No one high up seemed to care that the Americans had a set of plans themselves, even though the British government had commissioned and paid for the bloody thing. No one even cared that Mr. Fulton, the American who had dreamt up the design over ten years ago, had formerly built—and then scrapped—a similar ship for the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, to boot.
It was absurd to suppose that anyone might value the plans for a vessel that could be only twenty days at sea and held a crew of six and dipped down under the water such that it became sub-marine. Besides existing as an expensive underwater coffin, what use could such a ship have?
The Royal Navy ruled the seas. Nothing was going to change that.
