This same year he published a pamphlet entitled "A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation", copies of which were sent to Napoleon and President Washington.
Fulton went to France in 1797.

To earn money he painted several portraits and a panorama of the Burning of Moscow.

This panorama, covering the walls of a circular hall built especially for it, became very popular, and Fulton painted another.

In Paris he formed a warm friendship with that singular American, Joel Barlow, soldier, poet, speculator, and diplomatist, and his wife, and for seven years lived in their house.
The long and complicated story of Fulton's sudden interest in torpedoes and submarine boats, his dealings with the Directory and Napoleon and with the British Admiralty does not belong here.

His experiments and his negotiations with the two Governments occupied the greater part of his time for the years between 1797 and 1806.