“JEANIE DEANS,” CLYDE STEAMBOAT.
From “Mountain, Moor and Loch,” London, 1894.
The Savannah.—In the year 1818 there was built in New York, by Messrs. Crocker and Pickett, a full-rigged sailing ship of about 350 tons, named the Savannah. She was intended to be used as a sailing packet between New York and Havre, but before she was completed she was purchased by William Scarborough & Co., a shipping firm in Savannah, who fitted her up with a steam-engine of 90 horse-power, placed on deck, and a pair of paddle-wheels enclosed with canvas coverings, so constructed that they could be folded up and taken on deck in stormy weather, and that tedious operation seems to have been gone through pretty frequently in the course of her first voyages. Her maiden trip from New York to Savannah occupied 8 days, 15 hours. She left Savannah for Liverpool under steam, May 22nd, 1819, and arrived in the Mersey, “with all sail set,” on June 20th, making the run in twenty-nine and a half days. The whole time that the engine was at work during the voyage is said to have been only eighty hours. “She hove to off the bar, waiting for the tide to rise, at 5 p.m. shipped her wheels”—so the record of the period runs—“furled her sails and steamed up the river, with American banners flying, the docks being lined with thousands of people, who greeted her arrival with cheers.” From Liverpool, the Savannah sailed up the Baltic to Stockholm and St. Petersburg. On her return voyage, on account of stormy weather, the engine was scarcely used at all until the pilot came aboard off Savannah, when the sails were furled, and with the flood-tide she steamed into port. After several voyages of a similar kind, the machinery was removed and she plied for some time as a sailing packet between New York and Savannah, and was eventually wrecked on Long Island in 1822.
Shortly after this the British Government offered a prize of £10,000 to the party who should first make a successful voyage by steam power to India. The prize was won by Captain Johnston, who sailed from England on August 16th, 1825, in the Enterprise, of 500 tons and 240 horse-power,[7] and reached Calcutta on the 7th of December. The distance run was 13,700 miles, and the time occupied 113 days, during ten of which the ship was at anchor. She ran under steam sixty-four days and consumed 580 chaldrons of coal, the rest of the voyage being under sail.
THE “SAVANNAH,” 1819.
Eight years followed without any further attempts in the direction of ocean steam navigation. There seemed to be nothing in these costly experiments that would induce capitalists to invest their money in steamships. Sailing vessels had crossed the Atlantic in much less than thirty days, and had made the voyage to India in less time than the Enterprise took to do it. It would not pay! and had not scientific men and practical engineers pronounced the idea of transatlantic steamships as Utopian and utterly impracticable? “No vessel could be constructed,” they said, “that could carry enough coal to take her across the Atlantic by steam power alone.” Some of these unbelievers lived to see the day when large ocean steamers not only carry enough coal to take them from Liverpool to New York, but actually enough for the return voyage also.
The “Royal William.”
The Savannah and Enterprise were admittedly nothing more than sailing ships with auxiliary steam power. In the archives of the National Museum at Washington there is to be found the full history and log of the Savannah, which proves conclusively that she was not entitled to be called the pioneer of transatlantic steam navigation. That the honour belongs to the Royal William, built at Quebec and engined at Montreal, has been clearly proven. The evidence in support of this claim is embodied in a report of the Secretary of State of Canada for the year ended December 31st, 1894. From this it appears that the Royal William was designed by Mr. James Goudie, Marine Architect of Quebec, and that she was launched from the shipyard of Messrs. Campbell and Black at Cape Cove, Quebec, April 29th, 1831, in presence of Lord Aylmer, the Governor-General, and a vast concourse of people, Lady Aylmer naming the vessel with the usual ceremonies after the reigning monarch, William IV. She was towed to Montreal, where her engines of 200 horse-power were fitted by Messrs. Bennett and Henderson. She steamed back to Quebec in the beginning of August. She was built for the Quebec and Halifax Steam Navigation Company, incorporated by Act of Parliament, March 31st, 1831. This company comprised 235 persons whose names appear in the Act, among them being the three brothers, Samuel, Henry and Joseph Cunard. Samuel, the founder of the Cunard Line, was a frequent visitor at the Quebec shipyard, and carefully noted down all the information he could get from the builders.