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Of his possession of some such secret there can be no doubt whatsoever, for Samuel Pepys refers in his famous diary to a lawsuit, brought in the King's Courts by the heirs of Drebel, to secure the secret for their own use. What was the outcome of the suit or the subsequent history of Drebel's invention history does not record.
This most curious narrative suggests that in some way Drebel, who died in London in 1634, had discovered the art of compressing oxygen and conceived the idea of making it serviceable for freshening the air in a boat, or other place, contaminated by the respiration of a number of men for a long time.
For when, from time to time, he conceived that the finer and purer part of the air was consumed, or over-clogged by the respiration and steam of those that went in his ship, he would by unstopping a vessel full of this liquor, speedily restore to the troubled air such a proportion of vital parts, as would make it again, for a good while, fit for respiration whether by dissipating, or precipitating the grosser exhalations, or by some other intelligible way, I must not now stay to examine, contenting myself to add, that having had the opportunity to do some service to those of his relations that were most intimate with him, and having made it my business to learn what this strange liquor might be, they constantly affirmed that Drebel would never disclose the liquor unto any, nor so much as tell the nature whereof he had made it, to above one person, who himself assured me what it was.
A Hollander, Cornelius Drebel, or Van Drebel, born in 1572, in the town of Alkmaar, had come to London during the reign of James I., who became his patron and friend. Drebel seems to have been a serious student of science and in many ways far ahead of his times. Moreover, he had the talent of getting next to royalty. In 1620 he first conceived the idea of building a submarine.
The Honorable Robert Boyle, a scientist of unquestioned seriousness, tells in his New Experiments, Physico-Mechanical touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects about Drebel's work in the quaint language of his time: But yet on occasion of this opinion of Paracelsus, perhaps it will not be impertinent if, before I proceed, I acquaint your Lordship with a conceit of that deservedly famous mechanician and Chymist, Cornelius Drebel, who, among other strange things that he perform'd, is affirm'd, by more than a few credible persons, to have contrived for the late learned King James, a vessel to go under water; of which, trial was made in the Thames, with admired success, the vessel carrying twelve rowers, besides passengers; one which is yet alive, and related it to an excellent Mathematician that informed me of it.
Indeed the reference made to the substance by which Drebel purified the atmosphere in his submarine as "a liquor" suggests that he may possibly have hit upon the secret of liquid air which late in the nineteenth century caused such a stir in the United States.
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