affixed to one of his submarines, now known as spar torpedoes, and they were used (to little effect) during the English expeditions to La Rochelle in 1626. An early submarine, , attempted to lay a bomb with a timed fuse on the hull of during the American Revolutionary War, but failed in the attempt. In the early 1800s, the American inventor Robert Fulton, while in France, "conceived the idea of destroying ships by introducing floating mines under their bottoms in submarine boats". He coined the term "torpedo" about the explosive charges with which he outfitted his submarine Nautilus. However, both the French and the Dutch governments were uninterested in the submarine. Fulton then concentrated on developing the torpedo-like weapon independent of a submarine deployment, and in 1804 succeeded in convincing the British government to employ his 'catamaran' against the French. An April 1804 torpedo attack on French ships anchored at Boulogne, and a follow-up attack in October, produced several explosions but no significant damage and the weapon was abandoned. Fulton carried out a demonstration for the US government on 20 July 1807, destroying a vessel in New York's harbor. Further development languished as Fulton focused on his "steam-boat matters". During the War of 1812, naval mines were employed in attempts to destroy British vessels and protect American harbors. A submarine-deployed floating mine was used in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy while in New London's harbor. This prompted the British Captain Hardy to warn the Americans to cease efforts with the use of any "torpedo boat" in this "cruel and unheard-of warfare", or he would "order every house near the shore to be destroyed". Torpedoes were used by the Russian Empire during the Crimean War in 1855 against British warships in the Gulf of Finland. They used an early form of chemical detonator. During the American Civil War, the term torpedo was used for what is today called a contact mine, floating on or below the water surface using an air-filled demijohn or similar flotation device. These devices were very primitive and apt to prematurely explode. They would be detonated on contact with the ship or after a set time, although electrical detonators were also occasionally used. was the first warship to be sunk in 1862 by an electrically-detonated mine. Spar torpedoes were also used; an explosive device was mounted at the end of a spar up to long projecting forward