NELSON AT COPENHAGEN.
Accordingly next morning he landed, being protected by a strong guard from the possible vengeance of the Danish population. “The battle so dreadfully destructive to the Danes was in sight of the city; the whole of the succeeding day was employed in landing the wounded, and there was scarcely a house without its cause for mourning. It was no new thing for Nelson to show himself regardless of danger, and it is to the honour of Denmark that the populace suffered themselves to be restrained. Some difficulty occurred in adjusting the duration of the armistice. He required sixteen weeks, giving, like a seaman, the true reason, that he might have time to act against the Russian fleet and return. This not being acceded to, a hint was thrown out by one of the Danish commissioners of the renewal of hostilities. ‘Renew hostilities!’ said he to the interpreter, ‘tell him we are ready at a moment; ready to bombard this very night!’ Fourteen weeks were at length agreed upon; the death of the Emperor Paul intervened, and the Northern Confederacy was destroyed. Nelson was raised to the rank of viscount, and, indeed, had not the Government dealt out honours to him slowly and by degrees, their stock would long ere that have been exhausted.” The grand sea battle in which he saved his country and lost his life has been already described in these pages.
CHAPTER V.
The History of Ships and Shipping Interests (continued).
Early Paddle-boats—Worked by Animal Power—Blasco de Garay’s Experiment—Solomon de Caus—David Ramsey’s Engines—The Marquis of Worcester—A Horse-boat—Boats worked by Water—By Springs—By Gunpowder—Patrick Miller’s Triple Vessel—Double Vessels worked by Capstans—The First Practical Steam-boat—Symington’s Engines—The Second Steamer—The Charlotte Dundas—American Enterprise—James Rumsey’s Oar-boats worked by Steam—Poor Fitch—Before his Age—Robert Fulton—His Torpedo Experiments—Wonderful Submarine Boat—Experiments at Brest and Deal—His first Steam-boat—Breaks in Pieces—Trip of the Clermont, the first American Steamer—Opposition to his Vessels—A Pendulum-boat—The first Steam War-ship—Henry Bell’s Comet.
The employment of animal power in the propulsion of vessels is of very ancient date, and we shall see that steam-power was proposed for the same purpose as soon as the steam-engine had been utilised for pumping mines, although it was some time before it could be applied practically and profitably. We are told that “in some very ancient manuscripts extant in the King of France’s library, it is said that the boats by which [pg 78]the Roman army under Claudius Caudex was transported into Sicily, were propelled by wheels moved by oxen. And in many old military treatises the substitution of wheels for oars is mentioned.”[20] “Although an old work on China,” says another authority,[21] “contains a sketch of a vessel moved by four paddle-wheels, and used perhaps in the seventh century, the earliest distinct notice of this means of propulsion appears to be by Robertus Vulturius, in A.D. 1472, who gives several wood-cuts representing paddle-wheels.”
The first use of steam in connection with the propulsion of vessels is perhaps that said to have been made by Blasco de Garay, in 1543. He had proposed to the Emperor Charles V. the construction of an engine capable of moving large vessels in a calm, and without the use of sails or oars. “In spite of the opposition this project encountered, the emperor consented to witness the experiment, which was accordingly made in the Trinity, a vessel of 200 tons, laden with corn, in the port of Barcelona, on the 17th June, 1543. Garay, however, would not uncover his machinery, or exhibit it publicly, but it was evident that it consisted of a cauldron of boiling water (una gran caldera de aqua hirviendo), and of two wheels set in motion by that means, and applied externally on each side (banda) of the vessel.
“The persons commissioned by the emperor to report on the invention seem to have approved it, commending especially the readiness with which the vessel tacked. The Treasurer Ravago, however, observed that a ship with the proposed machinery could not go faster than two leagues in three hours; that the apparatus was complex and expensive; and that there was danger of the boiler bursting. The other commissioners maintained that such a vessel might go at the rate of a league an hour, and would tack in half the time required by an ordinary ship. When the exhibition was over, Garay removed the apparatus from the Trinity, depositing the woodwork in the arsenal at Barcelona, but retaining himself the rest of the machinery. Notwithstanding, however, the objections urged by Ravago, the emperor was inclined to favour his project, but his attention at the time was engrossed by other matters. Garay was, however, promoted, and received a sum of money, besides the expenses of the experiment made at Barcelona.” The above account is from Spanish sources, supposed to be authentic, till Mr. MacGregor, in 1857, made a journey into Spain for the express purpose of verifying them. The conclusions to which he came were that the paddle-wheels were turned by men.
About this epoch, however, frequent mention is made of means of propulsion other than by sails or oars, and it is evident that men of learning in various places were nearly simultaneously musing and thinking over the matter. J. C. Scaliger (who died 1558) published at Frankfort a short account of a vessel to be propelled without oars. Another inventor[22] a few years later, says quaintly, “And furthermore you may make a boat to goe without oares or sayle, by the placing of certain wheeles on the outside of the boate, in that sort, that the armes of the wheeles may goe into the water, and so [pg 79]turning the wheeles by some provision, and so the wheeles shall make the boate goe.” Bessoni, in 1582, describes a vessel consisting of two hulls decked above,—like the Castalia or Calais-Douvres—and a wheel worked by ropes and a windlass in the interval between them. Ramelli, in 1588, designed a paddle-wheel flat-bottomed boat, worked by men turning a winch-handle. Indeed, Roger Bacon had, three centuries and a half before, spoken of a “vessel which, being almost wholly submerged, would run through the water against waves and winds with a speed greater than that attained by the fastest London pinnaces.”