The young partners had also the great advantage of the skilled heads of the different departments, who had been trained by long and valuable experience. For many years William Murdock was the Mentor of the firm. Though tempting offers of partnerships were made to him, he remained loyal to Boulton and Watt to the last. They treated him generously, and he was satisfied to spend his life in their service. He had gradually worked his way to the foremost place in their establishment, besides achieving reputation as an inventor and a man of practical science. His model locomotive of 1784 was the first machine of the kind made in this country; and it is to be regretted that he did not pursue the subject. But Murdock was a very modest, unambitious man, content to keep in the background, and not possessed by that “pushing” quality which helps so many on to fortune. We have already stated that he invented the sun and planet motion, which was eventually adopted by Watt in preference to his own method of securing rotary motion. His daily familiarity with pumping-engines in Cornwall also led him to suggest and introduce many improvements in their details, which Boulton and Watt were always ready to adopt. He was a great favourite in Cornwall, and not less esteemed for his estimable and manly qualities than for his mechanical skill. When the adventurers heard of his intention to return to Soho, in 1798, they offered him 1000l. a year to continue at the mines, but he could not be tempted to remain.

Returned to Soho, Murdock was invested with the general supervision and management of the mechanical department, in which he proved of essential value. He was regarded as “the right hand” of Boulton and Watt. He proceeded to introduce great improvements in the manufacture of the engines, contriving numerous machines for casting, boring, turning, and fitting the various parts together with greater precision. His plan of boring cylinders by means of an endless screw (turned by the moving power) working into a toothed wheel, whose axis carried the cutter head, instead of by spur gear, was found very useful in practice, and produced a much more smooth and steady motion of the machine. As early as 1785, he invented the first oscillating engine,[350] which still continues in use in various improved forms. His invention of the double D slide valve, in place of the four poppet valves in Watt’s double engine,[351] was also found of great value; saving steam, and ensuring greater simplicity in the construction and working of the engine. In his oscillating engine the motion is given to the slide valve by the oscillation of the cylinder, and engines of small power still continue to be worked in this manner. Another of his improvements in engine construction was his method of casting the steam cases for cylinders in one piece, instead of in separate segments bolted together, according to the previous practice. He also invented a rotary engine of an ingenious construction; but though he had one erected to drive the machines in his private workshop, where it continued employed for about thirty years, it never came into general use.[352] Murdock had a good deal of the temperament of Watt: he was always scheming improvements, and was most assiduous in carrying them out. In such cases he would not trust to subordinates, but executed his designs himself wherever practicable; and he sometimes carried his labours so far into the night that the rising sun found him at his anvil or his turning lathe.

Murdock is also entitled to the merit of inventing lighting by gas. The inflammable qualities of the air obtained by distillation of coal had long been known,[353] but Murdock was the first to apply the knowledge to practical uses. The subject engaged much of his attention in the year 1792, when he resided at Redruth. As his days were fully occupied in attending to his employers’ engine business, it was only in the evenings, after the day’s work was over, that he could pursue the subject. It is not improbable that he was led to undertake the investigation by Mr. Boulton’s chemical enthusiasm, which communicated itself to all with whom he came in contact. It will be remembered that the latter occupied much of his leisure at Cosgarne in analysing earths, minerals, and vegetable substances, trying to find out the gases they contained; and Murdock was his zealous assistant on these occasions. In the paper which he communicated to the Royal Society on the subject of lighting by coal-gas in 1808, for which they awarded him their large Rumford Gold Medal, he observed,—

Murdock put his discovery to the best practical test by lighting up his house and offices at Redruth with gas; and he had a gas lantern constructed, with a jet attached to the bottom of the lantern and a bladder of gas underneath, with which he lighted himself home at night across the moors when returning from his work to his house at Redruth.[355] On the occasion of a visit which he made to Soho in 1794, he took the opportunity of mentioning to Mr. Watt the experiments he had made, and their results; expressing his conviction of the superior economy, safety, and illuminating qualities of coal-gas, compared with oils and tallow. He then suggested that a patent should be taken out for the application, and at various subsequent periods he urged the subject upon the attention of his principals. But they were at the time so harassed by litigation in connexion with their own steam-engine patent, that they were unwilling to enter upon any new enterprise which might possibly lead them into fresh embroilments; and nothing was done to protect the invention.

On Murdock’s return to Soho in 1798, he proceeded with his investigations, and contrived an apparatus for making, purifying, and storing the gas on a large scale; and several of the offices in the building were regularly lighted by its means. On the general illumination which took place in celebration of the Peace of Amiens in 1802, the front of Soho Manufactory was brilliantly illuminated with gas, to the astonishment and admiration of the public. The manageableness, the safety, the economy, and the brilliancy of the new light being thus proved, Boulton and Watt in 1803 authorised Murdock to proceed with the general fitting up of the manufactory with pipes and burners, and, from that date, it continued to be regularly lit up with coal-gas. Several large firms followed their example; amongst others Phillips and Lee, Burley, and Kennedy, at Manchester, and Gott and Sons, at Leeds; and the manufacture of gas-making apparatus became one of the regular branches of business at Soho. Several years later, in 1805, when Watt went down to Glasgow, he found gas in pretty general use.

Several years after the introduction of the new light, a German, named Wintzer or Winsor, brought out (in 1809) a scheme similar to one projected in Paris by Le Bon, for lighting the streets by gas. He proposed a Joint Stock Company, with a capital of 300,000l., and held forth to subscribers the prospect of a profit of ten thousand per cent.![357] He applied to Parliament for a Bill, against which Murdock petitioned, and was examined before the Committee. Though they were staggered by the crudities of Winsor, they had some difficulty even in accepting the more modest averments of Murdock as to the uses of coal-gas for lighting purposes. “Do you mean to tell us,” asked one member, “that it will be possible to have a light without a wick?” “Yes, I do, indeed,” answered Murdock. “Ah, my friend,” said the legislator, “you are trying to prove too much.” It was as surprising and inconceivable to the honourable member as George Stephenson’s subsequent evidence before a Parliamentary Committee to the effect that a carriage might be drawn upon a railway at the rate of twelve miles an hour without a horse.

No wonder that strange notions were entertained about gas in those early days. It seemed so incredible a contrivance, to make air that could be sent along pipes for miles from the place at which it was made to the place at which it issued as jets of fire, that it ran entirely counter to all preconceived notions on the subject of illumination. Even Sir Humphry Davy ridiculed the idea of lighting towns with gas, and asked one of the projectors if it were intended to take the dome of St. Paul’s for a gasometer; and Sir Walter Scott made many clever jokes about the absurdity of lighting London with smoke, though he shortly after adopted the said “smoke” for lighting up his own house at Abbotsford. It was popularly supposed that the gas was carried along the pipes on fire, and that hence the pipes must be intensely hot. Thus, when the House of Commons was first lighted up with gas, the architect insisted on the pipes being placed several inches from the wall for fear of fire, and members might be seen applying their gloved hands to them to ascertain their temperature, expressing the greatest surprise on their being found as cool as the adjoining walls.[358]

The advantages of the new light, however, soon became generally recognised; and gas companies were established in most of the large towns. Had Murdock patented the invention, it must have proved exceedingly remunerative to him; but he derived no advantage from the extended use of the new system of lighting except the honour of having initiated it,—though of this more than one attempt was made to deprive him. As he himself modestly said, in his paper read before the Royal Society, “I believe I may, without presuming too much, claim both the first idea of applying, and the first actual application of this gas to economical purposes.”

Murdock’s attention was, however, diverted from prosecuting his discovery of the uses of gas to a profitable issue by his daily business, which was of a very engrossing character. He continued, nevertheless, an almost incessant contriver, improver, and inventor; following, like his master Watt, the strong bent of his inclinations. One of his most cherished schemes was the employment of compressed air as a motive power. He contrived to work a little engine of 12-inch cylinder and 18-inch stroke, which drove the lathe in the pattern-shop, by means of the compressed air of the blast-engine employed in blowing the cupolas at the Soho Foundry; and this arrangement continued in use for a period of about thirty-five years. He also constructed a lift worked by compressed air, which raised and lowered the castings from the Boring-mill to the level of the Foundry and the Canal Bank.[359] He used the same kind of power to ring the bells in his house at Sycamore Hill; and the contrivance was afterwards adopted by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford.[360] He experimented on the power of high-pressure steam in impelling shot, and contrived a steam-engine in 1803, with which he made many trials at Soho, in anticipation of Perkins’s apparatus. He was the inventor of the well-known cast-iron cement so extensively used in engine and machine work; and the manner in which he was led to it affords a striking illustration of his quickness of observation. Finding that some iron-borings and sal-ammoniac had got accidentally mixed together in his tool-chest and rusted his saw-blade nearly through, he took note of the circumstance, mixed the articles in various proportions, and at last arrived at the famous cement, which eventually became an article of extensive manufacture at the Soho works, completely superseding the cement invented by Watt. In 1810 he took out a patent for boring stone pipes for water, and cutting columns out of solid blocks by one operation. In 1815 he invented an apparatus for heating the water for the Baths at Leamington by the circulation of water through pipes from a boiler,—a method since extensively adopted for heating buildings and garden-houses. While occupied in erecting the apparatus at Leamington, a heavy cast-iron plate fell upon his leg and severely crushed it, laying him up for many months.

His ingenuity was constantly at work, even upon matters which lay entirely outside his special calling. Mr. Fairbairn informs us that he contrived a variety of curious machines for consolidating peat moss, finely ground and pulverised, under immense pressure, and moulding it into beautiful medals, armlets, and necklaces, which took the most brilliant polish, and had the appearance of the finest jet. Observing that fish-skins might be used as an economical substitute for isinglass, he went up to London to explain to the brewers the best method of preparing and using them.[361] While in town on this errand, it occurred to him that there was an enormous waste of power in the feet of men and animals treading the streets of London, which might be economised and made productive; and he conceived the idea of using the streets as a grand treadmill, under which the waste power was to be stored up by mechanical methods, and turned to account! Another of his ingenious schemes—though then thought equally impracticable with that last mentioned—was his proposed method of transmitting letters and packages through a tube exhausted by an air-pump. This idea seems to have led to the projection of the Atmospheric Railway, the success of which, so far as it went, was again due to the practical ability of Murdock’s pupil Samuel Clegg. Though the atmospheric railway was eventually abandoned, it is remarkable that Murdock’s original idea has since been revived, and practised with success, by the London Pneumatic Despatch Company.

Such is a brief sketch of the life and works of this estimable and ingenious mechanic, for so many years the mainstay of the Soho works. Mr. Fairbairn, who first made his friendship at Manchester in 1816, speaks of him as one of the most distinguished veterans in mechanical engineering then living,—“tall and well-proportioned in figure, with a most intelligent and benevolent expression of countenance.” He was a man of robust constitution, and though he sorely taxed it, he lived to an old age, surviving the elder Boulton and Watt by many years.[362]

CHAPTER XXI.
Application of Steam-power to Navigation—Miller and Symington—Boulton and Watt’s Engine adopted by Fulton.

It will be remembered that one of the early speculations of Roger Bacon related to the employment of engines of navigation without oarsmen, “so that the greatest river and sea ships, with only one man to steer them, may sail swifter than if they were fully manned,”—that one of the uses to which Papin proposed to apply the steam-engine was to “propel ships against the wind and tide,” in illustration of which he constructed his model steamboat,—and that, shortly after Newcomen’s engine had become generally introduced as a pumping power, Jonathan Hulls took out a patent with the object of applying it to tow ships into and out of harbours. Hulls was followed, after a long interval, by Jouffroy in France and by Fitch in America, but none of their experiments proved successful; and it was not until Watt invented the condensing engine that it was found practicable to employ steam as a regular propelling power in navigation.

It was natural that the extraordinary success of Watt’s invention should direct attention anew to the subject. The engine, in the powerful, compact, economical, and manageable form, into which he had brought it, was found able to effect rotary motion in the various processes of manufacture; and, in a maritime country like England, the thought that would naturally occur to many minds would be this: If the steam-engine can drive mill-wheels, why may it not in like manner be employed to drive the wheels of carriages by land and the paddle-wheels of vessels by sea? The subject was, indeed, often brought under the notice of both Boulton and Watt; but the anxiety, annoyance and expense to which they had been subjected in defending their original patent, deterred them from venturing on this new field of enterprise. Watt never made his proposed locomotive engine for running on common roads; and the model constructed by Murdock at Redruth in 1784, remained a model still.

The subject was, however, shortly after taken up by William Symington, at Wanlockhead, in Scotland, where his father was employed as engineman in superintending the working of one of Boulton and Watt’s pumping-engines. The sight of this engine, and his father’s employment upon it, had probably the effect of first directing his attention to steam-power and its extended uses; and having heard of Murdock’s ingenious design from Boulton and Watt’s men, who were constantly visiting and inspecting the pumping-engine,[364] it occurred to him to try whether he could not himself construct the model of a steam-carriage for use on common roads. He succeeded in making his model, and when it was finished, Mr. Meason, the manager of the Wanlockhead Lead Mines, was so much pleased with it that he asked the young man to accompany him to Edinburgh, to show it to the leading men of science in that city. Mr. Meason allowed it to be exhibited at his own house, Symington being in attendance to give explanations. Some of the Edinburgh professors, who came to see the model, were so much pleased with the youthful inventor (then only about twenty years of age), and the indications of mechanical genius which his machine displayed, that they strongly recommended Mr. Meason to enter him as a student at the University, which he readily assented to, and Symington accordingly matriculated at Edinburgh College in 1786, and, amongst other lectures, attended those of Dr. Black on Chemistry in the following session.

The Scotch roads were in too bad a condition at the time to admit of their being run over by a locomotive, and Symington eventually abandoned his proposed scheme. But he had also an idea that the steam-engine might be economically applied to the working of boats on canals, or ships at sea; and with that object he invented an engine specially adapted for the purpose. This clearly appears from his correspondence with Thomas Gilbert, M.P., brother to the Duke of Bridgewater’s land steward. Mr. Gilbert had inspected the model of the steam-carriage while on a visit to Edinburgh, and at the same time had some conversation with Symington as to the employment of the steam-engine in hauling canal-boats, the result of which was that Symington promised to write him more fully on both topics. He proceeded to do so in a letter dated Wanlockhead, 24th September, 1786; in which, after describing the dimensions, power, mode of working, and the probable price (about 70l.) of a full-sized locomotive, he proceeded—

About the same time that Symington was exhibiting his model carriage in Edinburgh, Mr. Miller of Dalswinton was trying experiments at Leith in propelling boats by paddle-wheels worked by men at a capstan. He had a triple vessel built, with wheels placed inside, on turning which the vessel was impelled forward. It will be observed that this was but a repetition of the old experiment of Blasco Garay at Barcelona, and of Savery on the Thames. The experiments were on the whole successful, but the power employed in propelling the vessel was felt to be defective, and the turning of the capstan was very hard work, at which men could not be brought to work continuously for any long period.

Mr. Miller, being curious as to all mechanical novelties, went, amongst others, to see Symington’s model locomotive; and in the course of conversation with the inventor informed him of his own project, describing the difficulty he had experienced in getting his paddles turned for lack of power. The immediate remark of Symington was, “Why don’t you use the steam-engine?” He proceeded to show how easily the engine might be connected with the wheels of the boat, using the model of the steam-carriage before him to explain his meaning. Mr. Miller appeared to have been struck by the suggestion, and in the pamphlet which he shortly after published describing his new vessel, he referred to the probable employment of steam-power for the purpose of driving the paddles. “I have reason to believe,” he said, “that the power of the steam-engine may be applied to work the wheels, so as to give them a quicker motion, and consequently to increase that of the ship. In the course of this summer, I intend to make the experiment; and the result, if favourable, shall be communicated to the public.”[366]

Mr. Miller subsequently contrived and constructed a double vessel, 60 feet in length, worked by a paddle-wheel placed amidships between the two halves of the ship, with a clear waterway in the middle in which the paddle was worked, propelling the vessel. An experiment with this new ship was tried in June, 1787, which was considered successful. “The vessel being put in motion by the water-wheel, wrought by five men at the capstern, was steered so as to keep the wind right ahead, and her rate of going was found by the log to be three and a half miles in the hour.”[367] A sailing-match was arranged by Mr. Miller, in which he was to run his vessel from Inchcolm (a small island in the Frith of Forth) to Leith, against a Custom-house wherry which was reckoned a fast sailer. In this race the double vessel beat by a few minutes. A young man named James Taylor, who officiated in Mr. Miller’s family as tutor to his two younger sons, was on board the vessel, and took his turn in working the wheels, which he found to be “very severe exercise.” In consequence of this trial and its results, Taylor became persuaded that unless a more commanding power than that of men could be applied, the invention of the paddle-ship would prove of little use; and on turning the matter over in his mind, he suggested to Mr. Miller the use of the steam-engine. This, however, was no new idea, as, from what we have already stated, it is clear that it had already occurred to Symington, who had even contrived an engine for the express purpose of propelling ships. As Taylor was intimate with Symington, and a fellow-student with him at Edinburgh College in the session of 1786–7, it is probable that Taylor obtained from him his first idea of the application of the steam-engine to Mr. Miller’s paddle-boat.

The result of Symington’s and Taylor’s suggestion was, that Mr. Miller resolved to make a further experiment; and he ordered a double boat to be built and fitted with a steam-engine for trial on Dalswinton Loch, near his country-seat in Dumfriesshire, in the course of the following summer. Symington prepared the plans of the engine, the castings of which were executed by George Watt, an Edinburgh founder; and when the parts were ready, Symington and Taylor went together to Wanlockhead, in the summer of 1788, to have the engine erected and placed in the boat in readiness for the proposed trial.

In the mean time, other projects of a similar kind were afoot; and Boulton and Watt continued to be solicited from different quarters on the subject of engines for sailing ships. To these they continued to turn a deaf ear. They were willing to execute engines to order, but they declined to undertake them as speculations. Thus, in the spring of 1788, we find Sir John Dalrymple, one of the barons of the Court of Exchequer at Edinburgh, addressing Boulton on the subject of the proposed application of the steam-engine to the propulsion of ships, and the reply of the latter clearly shows what were then the views of the Soho firm on the subject:—

Symington had many difficulties to encounter in erecting his engine at Leadhills. Though it was of very small size, being of only about two horses power, with a four-inch cylinder, it required as much skill to construct as a much larger engine would have done. The arrangement of the power was new, as well as the application; and, as in the case of every new machine, where unforeseen defects were brought to light, new expedients had to be contrived for the purpose of overcoming them. Mr. Miller became impatient for its completion, and repeatedly wrote from Edinburgh urging despatch, fearing lest some other projector should get the start of him in applying the steam-engine to the driving of ships. Taylor, who managed the corresponding part of the enterprise, replied, “You need be under very little apprehension as to any person getting before you in this. It is easy in conversation, but very different in execution. However, as such a circumstance would be equally unpleasant to us, to prevent it you may depend upon the greatest expedition being used.”[369]

Taylor being further urged by his employer, again wrote from Leadhills on the 12th September, 1788,—“Mr. Symington and I are as busy here as we possibly can be. We work from six o’clock in the morning till dark in the evening, without losing a moment; also, to forward us the more, we have called in the aid of a watchmaker here, who works along with us. We are now in great forwardness, and will not be long of finishing. I could not ascertain to a day when it will happen, but believe we shall have it at Dalswinton some time before the end of the month.”[370]

The engine was shortly after finished, mounted in a strong oak frame, and taken to Dalswinton. It was then placed on the deck of Mr. Miller’s double pleasure-boat, twenty-four feet long and seven broad, which had been prepared for its reception.

The engine was placed on one side of the boat, the boiler on the other side to balance it, and the paddle-wheels in the middle; the rotary motion being obtained from the engine by chains, ratchet-wheels, and catches. The first experiment was tried on the 14th of October, 1788, and proved successful, the engine being propelled at the rate of five miles an hour.[371] Among the persons present on the occasion, besides Miller, Symington, and Taylor, were Alexander Nasmyth, the landscape painter, and Robert Burns, the poet, then a tenant of Mr. Miller on the neighbouring farm of Ellisland. After a few further experiments the engine was taken out of the boat and carried into Mr. Miller’s house, where it remained for many years, and was eventually deposited in the Museum of Patents at Kensington, where it is now to be seen.

The experiments made with this first steamboat were so satisfactory that Mr. Miller resolved to try one upon a larger scale. By this time Messrs. Allen and Stewart, of Leith, had built for him another double vessel, ninety feet in length; and he wrote to Symington, requesting his estimate of the cost of fitting it with a suitable steam-engine. Symington’s reply was to the effect that a proper-sized engine for such a vessel would, in his opinion, be about 250l., including the float-wheels. The necessary order was given, and Symington proceeded to the Carron Ironworks for the purpose of constructing it. The vessel arrived at Carron on the 24th June, and by the month of November following the engine was finished and put on board ready for trial.[372] The result was not so satisfactory as in the case of the experiment on Dalswinton Loch. The paddle-wheels were too weak; first one float and then another broke off; and the trial had to be suspended until the defects were remedied. The next trial was, however, more satisfactory. The vessel reached a speed of seven miles an hour; and this was repeated with the same result. There must, however, have been some defect in the engine performances; for, in a letter written by Miller to Taylor, who was present throughout, he expressed the opinion that Symington’s engine was altogether unsuitable for giving motion to a vessel.[373] He accordingly ordered the engine to be taken out and placed in the Carron Works, and the vessel itself to be laid up at Bruce Haven.

Thus matters remained until the spring of the following year, when Mr. Miller decided on applying to Boulton and Watt for an engine of a proper construction, offering at the same time to associate them with him in his enterprise. The negotiation was opened by Robert, afterwards Lord Cullen, who addressed Watt on the subject; but his reply was not encouraging. Like his partner, Watt was averse to new speculations; and he had had too much anxiety and worry in connexion with his original enterprise to enter upon any new one. It will also be observed that he entertained doubts as to the eventual success of ocean navigation by steam. The following was his reply:—

Mr. Miller proceeded no further with his experiments, on which he had already expended a large sum of money. He seems to have lost faith in the applicability of the steam-engine to the propulsion of ships, and reverted to his original idea, as we find him taking out a patent in 1796 for a new kind of flat-bottomed ship, which he proposed to impel during calms by means of wheels worked by capstans; but he makes no mention whatever of the use of the steam-engine.

Symington was greatly disappointed with the result of his experiments. Being without the means of carrying the steamboat further, he feared that all his past labours would prove in vain, and that some more fortunate speculator would carry off the prize that seemed almost within his grasp. The subject was not, however, allowed to sleep. Fitch and Evans were pursuing the invention in America; Rumsey, another American, came over to England in 1788, with a scheme for propelling boats by steam; and Fourness and Earl Stanhope were making experiments in the same direction; but none of them had yet succeeded in constructing a practicable working steamboat. Thus ten more years passed, during which other inventors came forward, took out patents, made their trials, failed, and disappeared.

In the year 1801 Symington had another chance. Lord Dundas, Governor of the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, had been revolving in his mind whether some more expeditious and economical method than horse-power might not be contrived for hauling the boats along the canal; and, being aware of the experiments made by Miller and Symington ten years before, he determined to give Symington’s engine another trial. A boat was accordingly built for the purpose of the experiment, and named the ‘Charlotte Dundas,’ after his Lordship’s daughter. For this vessel Symington contrived a steam-engine of a greatly improved character. It was a direct-acting engine, the steam acting on each side of the piston, after the method invented by Watt, whose patent had now expired; the rotary motion of the paddle-wheels being secured by means of a connecting-rod and crank, instead of by chains and ratchet-wheels, as in the first two boats.

The first trial of the vessel was perfectly satisfactory. After making a trip to Glasgow, she was employed in towing vessels along the canal. She was also occasionally sent down the Frith to bring up ships detained by contrary winds to the canal entrance at Grangemouth.[375]

Fortune at length seemed to smile on poor Symington, and his spirits were proportionately elated at the result of these important experiments. He had, in fact, achieved a decided success in the ‘Charlotte Dundas,’—in which he combined together, for the first time, those improvements which constitute the present system of Steam Navigation. Indeed Mr. Woodcroft, a competent judge, says that “the vessel might, from the simplicity of its machinery, have been at work at this day with such ordinary repairs as are now occasionally required to all steamboats.”[376]

Lord Dundas was so well satisfied with the performances of the vessel that he proposed to introduce the inventor to the Duke of Bridgewater, the great canal proprietor, who had expressed to him his wish to employ some method of hauling his boats more effective than horse-power. His Lordship accordingly directed Symington to have a model of his steamboat constructed for the purpose of showing it to the Duke. Symington went up to London himself to explain its mechanical arrangements, and the Duke was so much pleased with it that he ordered eight boats of the same construction to be made as speedily as possible for use upon his canal. Symington returned to Scotland to proceed with the execution of this important order.

But in the moment of his apparent triumph fate again proved hostile to the inventor. Though Lord Dundas was fully satisfied with the performances of the ‘Charlotte Dundas,’ and hailed the use of steam as the beginning of a new era in navigation, the proprietors of the canal became seriously alarmed lest the banks should be washed away by the waves which the steamboat raised in its wake, and they came to the resolution of prohibiting all further experiments. To add to Symington’s vexation, the very same day on which this adverse decision of the canal managers reached him, he received intelligence of the death of the Duke of Bridgewater, and an order to suspend the erection of the eight steamboats until fresh instructions had been given. By this time Lord Dundas had expended about 7000l. on his experiments, and was not disposed to proceed any further with them. The ‘Charlotte Dundas,’ the first successful steamboat, was accordingly laid up at Bainsford, in a creek of the canal; and the attempt to introduce steam navigation on canals was from that time suspended.[377]

Symington’s experiments, though they proved most unfortunate as respected himself, nevertheless led to the adoption of the system of navigation by steam both in America and Scotland. Among the many visitors who inspected the ‘Charlotte Dundas’ were Fulton the American artist, and Andrew Bell the engineer, of Glasgow. Fulton was on board the first vessel in the month of July, 1801, when she made a run of eight miles on the Forth and Clyde Canal in an hour and twenty minutes; on which occasion he narrowly inquired into the action of the engine and paddle-wheels, and made careful sketches of the vessel and her machinery.[378] Andrew Bell also made frequent visits to the ‘Charlotte Dundas,’ as well as to the pattern shop where the models of the machinery were kept; and there is little doubt that, like Fulton, he obtained his ideas of steam navigation principally from what Symington had accomplished. Fulton and Bell were well acquainted with each other,[379] and kept up a correspondence on the subject of steamboats. Bell, according to his own account, supplied Fulton with information and drawings of steamboat machinery; and it was by his recommendation that Fulton ordered the engine for his first successful steamboat from Boulton and Watt.

With the information obtained at Grangemouth, Fulton proceeded to Paris, where we shortly find him in communication with Mr. Livingstone, the United States’ envoy, who, like Fulton, took much interest in the subject of steam navigation. They had a model steamboat built for trial on the Seine; but when on the point of making the first experiment, the weight of the machinery broke the boat in two, and the whole went down together. Fulton’s greatest difficulty, as was to be expected, consisted in finding a suitable engine to propel his proposed boat, and he wrote to his friends in England on the subject. In March, 1802, we find him addressing Dr. Cartwright, who had invented an improvement in the steam-engine, which he thought would render it more suitable for driving vessels, requesting to be informed of the cost of one of six horse power, with particulars of its size and weight. Fulton communicated to his correspondent that, besides his proposed steamboat, he was experimenting on his ‘Nautilus’ or diving-boat for navigating under water; the object of this invention being to blow up the English ships of war which were then blockading the French ports. The experiments with the ‘Nautilus’ under water were said to have proved tolerably successful, though it had not yet succeeded in blowing up any of the English ships.

Not being able to obtain any satisfactory information from Dr. Cartwright, Fulton addressed a letter to James Watt, jun., of Soho, requesting to be informed of the price of a light and compact engine for his proposed vessel. “The object of my investigation,” he said, “is to find whether it is possible to apply the engine to working boats up our long rivers in America. The persons who have made such attempts have commenced by what they call improving Watt’s engine, but without having an idea of the physics which lie hid in it from common observers; but such improvements have appeared to me like the improvements of the preceptor of Alcibiades, who corrected Homer for the use of his scholars. Their ill success, and their never having found a good mode of taking a purchase in the water, are the reasons why they have all failed. Having, during the course of my experiments on submersive navigation, found an excellent mode of taking a purchase on the water, I wish to apply the engine to the movement. The only thing wanting is to arrange the engine as light and compact as possible.”[380]

The information asked for was duly communicated to Fulton, and a few months later he sent Boulton and Watt the drawings of parts of an engine which he requested them to make for him. By this time the rumour had gone abroad of the destructive powers of the ‘Nautilus,’ and Lord Stanhope publicly called attention to the subject in the House of Lords, representing the dangerous character of the invention. On Fulton’s order reaching Soho, Boulton suspected that it might really be intended for the ‘Nautilus,’ and he at once communicated with Government on the subject. To Lord Hawkesbury he wrote,—