THE COMET OF 1812
From an oil painting in the South Kensington Museum
Fulton had so far built steam vessels only for commercial traffic. He now came near to revolutionizing naval warfare with them. In 1813, in the middle of the war with this country, he presented to the President his plan for a steam-propelled armoured warship for coast defence, a design of an invulnerable vessel of thirty guns, twin-hulled, with a 120-horse-power engine in one hull, a boiler in the other, and a single paddlewheel in a space between the two; double-ended, flat-bottomed, and protected by a belt of solid timber 58 inches thick. Her armament was to consist, in addition to thirty 32-pounders, of submarine guns or columbiads, carried at each end and firing 100-pound projectiles below the water-line. Named the Demologos, this monstrous vessel was nearly completed when the war came to an end. It was too late for use. The treaty of Ghent being signed, interest in armaments immediately evaporated. Nevertheless, in the following year a trial of the Demologos was carried out, which showed that a speed of five and a half knots could be attained with her. The Demologos, now renamed the Fulton, served no useful purpose. She was laid up in Brooklyn Navy Yard, and many years elapsed before steam war vessels were built again in America.
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In the meantime progress had been made on this side of the Atlantic. Stimulated by Fulton’s commercial successes, Thomas Bell of Helensburgh built in 1812 a vessel of thirty tons’ burden named the Comet, successfully propelled by a 3-horse-power engine which worked a paddlewheel on each beam. This “handsome vessel” was intended to ply between Glasgow and Greenock, to sail by the power of wind, air, and steam; and so it did, with fair financial success, with a square sail triced to the top of a tall smoke-stack: the first passenger steamer to ply in European waters. Shortly afterwards steam vessels were built which pushed out to the open sea. In 1815 the Argyle, built on the Clyde and renamed Thames on being purchased by a London company, made a voyage from Greenock to London which was the subject of much comment. On making the Cornish coast after a stormy run south, boats were seen by those on board making towards her with all possible speed in the belief that she was on fire! All the rocks commanding St. Ives were covered with spectators as she entered the harbour, and the aspect of the vessel, we are told, “appeared to occasion as much surprise amongst the inhabitants, as the ships of Captain Cook must have produced on his first appearance among the islands of the South Seas.” Next day the Thames, her 9-foot paddlewheels driven by a 16-horse-power engine, reached Plymouth, where the crews of all the vessels in the Sound filled the rigging, and the harbour-master was “struck with astonishment.” From Plymouth she steamed to Portsmouth, making the passage in twenty-three hours. So great was the swarm of vessels that crowded round her, that the port admiral was asked to send a guard to preserve order. She steamed into harbour, with wind and tide, at from twelve to fourteen knots. A court-martial was sitting in the Gladiator frigate, but the whole court except the president adjourned to inspect the strange visitor. Next day the port admiral sent off a guard and band; and soon afterwards he followed, accompanied by three admirals, eighteen post captains, and a large number of ladies.[142]
The success of the Thames led to the immediate building of other and larger steamers. In ’17 the son of James Watt purchased a 94-foot boat, the Caledonia, fitted her with 28-horse-power machinery driving 10-foot paddlewheels, and for a pleasure trip proceeded in her up the Rhine as far as Coblentz. From this time onwards steam navigation for commercial purposes progressed rapidly. In 1818 a steamboat made regular voyages at sea; the Rob Roy, 90 tons, built by Denny of Dumbarton, with engines of 30 horse-power made by Napier, plied regularly between Holyhead and Dublin. In the same year the Savannah, a ship of 350 tons’ burden built and fitted with auxiliary steam machinery at New York, crossed the Atlantic, partly under steam; her paddlewheels with their cast-iron frame and axletree successfully withstanding heavy weather. In ’21 the postmaster-general introduced a steam service for the mails at Dover and Holyhead; and in the following year there were steamboats running between London and Leith, and other seaports. The experience of the Holyhead packets was of special value, as it proved that steam vessels could go to sea in weather which would keep sailing vessels in harbour. Soon after this the question was raised of employing steam power to shorten the passage between England and the East, as well as of the navigation by steam of the great Indian rivers. Steam superseded sails in the government mail service between Falmouth, Malta and Corfu; everywhere commercial enterprise was planning new lines of steamships and new possibilities of ocean travel. In ’25 a barque belonging to Mr. Pelham, afterwards Earl of Yarborough, was fitted with steam machinery as an auxiliary and made the voyage to India. The plash of the paddlewheel was then heard for the first time in Oriental waters.
By this time the great question of steam as applied to naval ends had arrived to agitate the Admiralty.
In ’22 M. Paixhans discharged his revolutionary treatise at the French nation, advocating, with a wealth of argument, a navy of steam-propelled warships armed with a few shell guns. Six years later a warning echo reverberated through Whitehall. Captain Sir John Ross published a volume on “Steam Navigation, with a System of the Naval Tactics peculiar to it,” in which, though his name was not mentioned, the arguments of M. Paixhans were set forth from an opposite point of view. The two books, starting with the same arguments, arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions. While Paixhans claimed that steam power offered important advantages to France, the English writer reached the gratifying conclusion that the change which steam would effect in naval affairs might be rendered favourable to this country. For coast defence alone steam vessels would be invaluable. The colonies would be safer from piracy. Passages, at present difficult or dangerous, would be made with speed and safety. Incidentally, an entirely new system of tactics would be evolved by the coming of steam; each ship-of-the-line would be escorted by a steam vessel, to tow her into position, and concentration of force would be obtained by such means as, harnessing two steamers to one sailing ship, so as to tow one half of the fleet to a position of vantage over the enemy. After the main action the steamers would themselves attack each other; and so on. Both French and English writers agreed that there would be a reversion to the ancient warfare of the galleys; the steamer, whose paddlewheels lent themselves readily to a pivot gun armament and to great powers of manœuvring, would always attack like a bull, facing the enemy, its bows presenting one or more large and well-protected cannon. Sir John Ross regarded the steamer, however, essentially as an auxiliary. M. Paixhans took a more sanguine view. “At this moment,” he wrote in May, ’22, “the English admiralty are building two steam vessels, each of thirty horsepower, one at Portsmouth and one at Plymouth, for tugging sailing ships held up by contrary winds. They commence by being the servitors of the ships-of-the-line; but it is their destiny to become their masters.”[143]
But the views of Sir John Ross did not find favour at the Admiralty. In the presence of the revolution the authorities continued to steer a policy of passive resistance to all changes and methods which might have the effect of depreciating existing naval material; and Lord Melville himself penned, as a reply to the Colonial Office to a request for a steam mail service between two Mediterranean ports, the principle which guided the Board. They felt it their bounden duty (he wrote in 1828) to discourage, to the utmost of their ability, the employment of steam vessels, as they considered that the introduction of steam was calculated to strike a fatal blow at the naval supremacy of the Empire.[144][145]