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."