The Comet, built by Bell iu 1811, was a vessel of forty feet keel, and ten and a half feet beam ; of about twenty-five tons burden, and three-horse power. This vessel began to run regularly between Glasgow and Helensburgh, in January, 1812, and continued to ply successfully during the following summer; her rate of motion was about five miles an hour. The second steam-boat established on the Clyde, the Elizabeth, was commenced as early as March, 1812, and was reedy for use about twelve months after. She was the property of Mr. Hutehison, a brewer ; but she was built under the direction of an engineer named Thomson, who had been engaged in some of Bell's first experiments. She was of longer proportion than the Comet, being fifty-eight feet long aloft, fifty-one feet keel, twelve feet beam, and five feet deep ; and her proportion of power to tonnage was much better, her burden being about thirty-three tons, and her engine of about ten-horse power. The Elizabeth performed the passage of twenty seven miles, between Glasgow and Greenock, twice a day; and, accord ing to her owner's account, made the voyage in something leas than four hours, with a hundred passengers on board, and, in favourable circumstances, in two hours and three-quarters. She accomplished, it would appear from the same statement, a distance of eighty-one miles in one day, at an average rate of nine miles an hour.
Stuart relates that while Bell was engaged in establishing his steamers on the Clyde, a person named Dawson was making similar experiments in Ireland; and that he had, according to his own account, built a steam-boat of fifty tons burden, worked by a high pressure steam-engine, as early as 1811; which, by one of those singular coincidences frequently met with in the history of inventions, he named the Comet. In 1813, it is added, Dawson established a steam-packet on the Thames, to ply between Gravesend and London, " which was the first that did so for public accommodation, although Mr. Lawrence of Bristol, who introduced a steam-boat on the Severn, soon after the successful operations on the Clyde, had her carried to London (through the canals) to ply on the 'Thames; but from the opposition of the watermen to the innovation, he was in the end obliged to take her to her first If this be correct, the Gravesend steam-packet alluded to must have been overlooked by the author of a pamphlet published in 1831, entitled ' An Account of the Origin of Steamboats in Spain, Great Britain, and America ; and of their Introduction and Employment upon the river Thames, between London and Gravesend, to the present time ;' by R. 1'. Cruder], of Milton by Gravesend, who repeats the statement in his ` History of Gravesend,' (Svo, ]843,) p. 484. Ho states that the first steam-boat which plied between London and Gravesend was the Margery, of seventy tons burden, and fourteen-horse power; a vessel originally used on the Clyde, where she was built in 1813, by Messrs. Wood of Port-Glasgow, the builders of the Comet and the Elizabeth. She was, it is stated, brought to London from Leith early in 1815, and on the 23rd of January in that year she began to ply between London and Gravesend. This vessel was, in the following year, removed to France, for use upon the Seine ; and that tried on the Thames by Dawson was, according to Stuart, sent to Spain, to ply between Seville and San Lucas. Cruden states that the Itielunond packet had been employed between London and Richmond in the year preceding the use of the Margery on the Gravesend station.
Among the enterprising individuals by whose exertions steam-boats were established upon the Thames, the name of George Dodd deserves a prominent place, although his history is a melancholy instance of the poverty which often attends the most ingenious inventors. lie was, it would appear, the first to undertake a considerable voyage by sea iu a steam-vessel. The boat with which this voyage was accom plished was built on the Clyde by Messrs. Wood, and was launched in 1813, under the name of the Glasgow ; but was subsequently altered, and called the Thames. She was of seventy-four or seventy-five tons burden, and about fourteen or sixteen horse-power, with isuldle-wheels nine feet in diameter. Dodd brought her round to the Thames by steam and sails, experiencing some very rough weather on the way, especially in the Irish Sea. A detailed account of the voyage was published in the Journal des Mines' for September, 1815, and subsequently at the end of Dodd's work on steam-boats. It is
needless to follow minutely the extension of steam navigation in the British dominions and elsewhere subsequent to the success of Bell and his immediate followers. Bell himself said, " I will venture to affirm that history does not afford an instance of such rapid improvement in commerce and civilisation as that which will be effected by steam vessels ; " and probably there are few at the present time who would not fully acknowledge the truth of his prediction, but it may be interesting to give, from Dodd, an enumeration of the principal steam vessels in use in Great Britain and Ireland at the date of his work (1818). He states that there were then eighteen steam-boats on the Clyde, two at Dundee, two on the Tay, two on the Trent, two on the Tyne, four on the Humber, two on the Mersey, three on the Yare, one on the Avon, one on the Severn, one on the Orwell, six on the Forth, two at Cork, and two intended to navigate from Dublin to Holyhead. In another part of his work be describes the vessels then in use upon the Thames, of which two, the Richmond and the London, plied between London, Richmond, and Twickenham, and had, he says, carried not less than ten thousand passengers within the last four months. These were built under Dodd's superintendence ; and in consequence of having to pass under the bridges, they were made with an apparatus of his invention for lowering their chimneys. These boats experienced much but ineffectual opposition from the watermen, who deemed their use an invasion of their rights. A third steam vessel designed by Dodd, the Sons of Commerce, intended for use between London and Gravesend, had been used, in the season pre ceding the publication of his work, between London and Margate, and had once performed the journey, about eighty-eight miles, in seven hours and thirty-five minutes. Her speed, when unassisted by wind or tide, was ten miles an hour. Another boat, the Majestic, plied between London and Margate in 1816. This vessel had been to Calais, and had often towed vessels of seven hundred tons burden down the river. The Regent, one of the early Thames steamers, was accidentally burnt off Whitstable, in July, 1817. Besides these, Dodd mentions the Caledonia, with two engines of fourteen-horse power, which had been from Margate to Flushing, and also on the Rhine ; the Eagle, which had a single paddle-wheel in the centre, and failed, he argues, for want of room for the escape of the water agitated by the paddles ; the Hope, a small vessel, built at Bristol, which proved a failure ; and the Thames, the vessel which Dodd himself brought from the Clyde. In addition to British steam-vessels, it is stated that there were at that time steam-packets and steam luggage-vessels used in Russia, the Netherlands, France, and Spain; and that one was building in the East Indies. In order to give an approximate statement of the progress of steam navigation in the United States about the same period, a few facts may be quoted from the evidence of Seth Hunt, Esq., formerly commandant of Upper Louisiana, before the select com mittee of the House of Commons appointed in 1817 to consider the means of preventing the mischief of explosion on board steam-boats. This gentleman stated that there were then ten steam-vessels running between New York and Albany, two between New York and the State of Connecticut, and four or five to New Jersey, besides the ferry-boats, of which there were four. On the river Delaware there were also a number of boats, which plied between Philadelphia and Trenton in New Jersey ; and others between Philadelphia and Newcastle, and Philadelphia and Wilmington, besides ferry-boats. Some of these were worked with high-pressure engines. There were steam-boats from Baltimore to Norfolk, which passed a part of the Chesapeak, several miles in width ; and steam-vessels had been to New London, which is still more exposed ; and also up to New Hertford. The Powhatan steam-boat, which was built at New York, had been exposed to a severe gale of wind in the open ocean for three days, after which it arrived at Norfolk, and thence proceeded up the James river to Richmond. The largest steam-boats in America were those upon the Mississippi, plying between New Orleans and Natchez. These vessels, the Etna and Vesuvius, were of four hundred and fifty tons burden, and carried two hundred and eighty tons of merchandise, one hundred passengers, and seven hundred bales of cotton.