In 1793 Fulton corresponded with Lord Stanhope on the subject of steam navigation. Lord Stanhope was fully aware that invention was knocking at the door, for in a letter to Wilberforce he says: “This country is vulnerable in so many ways, the picture is horrid.... I know, and in a few weeks I shall prove, that ships of any size may be navigated so as to go without wind and even directly against both wind and waves.... The most important consequence which I draw from this stupendous fact is this. It will shortly render all the navies of the world (I mean military navies) no better than lumber. For what can ships do that are dependent on wind and weather against fleets that are wholly independent of either? Therefore the boasted superiority of the British Navy is no more. We must have a new one. The French and other nations will for the same reasons have the same.”
He was himself an experimenter, and had been endeavouring to propel a boat by means of an appliance resembling a mechanical duck’s foot. The plans which Fulton submitted to him show a boat with an immense bow or spring fastened to a stumpy mast amidships, operating on a large paddle for which the rail at the extreme end of a raking stern acted as a fulcrum; a second plan shows the boat with a three-paddle revolving wheel at the side.
When Livingston went to France in 1801, an enthusiast for steam navigation, and, what was more important, an enthusiast of considerable means, Fulton, whom he there met and financed, was stimulated to fresh exertions. By 1803 a boat to their joint account was built, 70 feet long and 8 feet beam. With this it was proposed to experiment on the Seine. But the machinery, which is said to have been made by Périer, who opposed the Marquis de Jouffroy, was too heavy for the hull. The night before the trial trip was to be made was stormy: the boat broke in half and sank. Notwithstanding this blow to their hopes the partners proceeded with their attempts. The machinery was recovered and found to be practically uninjured, and the hull was rebuilt more strongly. The trial trip took place in August 1803, when the boat made four and a half miles an hour. This was a very moderate speed and was disappointing to all concerned. Nevertheless a voyage by a steam-ship had been made, and it is strange that very little notice was taken of the event in France. Livingston wrote home to America and described it enthusiastically, and he and Fulton determined to build a boat for American waters as soon as Fulton should return thither.
Shortly after this experiment Fulton visited Symington, who, as will be seen in the next chapter, had succeeded, with the assistance of Lord Dundas, in starting a little steamer, the Charlotte Dundas, on the Clyde as early as 1802. While this boat was being used on the Forth and Clyde Canal, Fulton introduced himself to Symington, whom he accompanied on a trip in the boat, the voyage being made solely on Fulton’s account.[15] The American took copious notes in a memorandum book and, to quote from Symington’s narrative, “after putting several pointed questions respecting the general construction and effect of the machine, which I answered in a most explicit manner, he jotted down particularly everything then described, with his own remarks upon the boat while moving with him on board along the canal; but he seems to have been altogether forgetful of this, as notwithstanding his fair promises, I never heard anything more of him until reading in a newspaper an account of his death.”
[15] Knight’s “Cyclopædia.”
John Stevens’ “Phœnix,” 1807.
Meantime Stevens, left to himself, had, in 1804, built a vessel propelled by twin screws which navigated the Hudson River. This vessel was remarkable in many ways. The boiler was tubular, and the screw was almost identical with the short four-threaded helix which many years afterwards was generally adopted. It is interesting to note that the screw propeller was tried so early, for it is generally believed that it was not used at all until many years after the introduction of paddles. The engine and boiler of Stevens’ boat are preserved at the Stevens Institute at Hoboken. After his death his son tried the engine and boiler in a boat, which, in the presence of a committee of the American Institute of New York, attained a speed of about nine miles an hour. Although the screw proved its suitability for propulsion, its superiority was not acknowledged, and for many years afterwards marine engineers confined their attention to the improvement of paddle-wheels and the engines for driving them. In 1807, with the assistance of his son Robert, Stevens built the paddle-wheel steamer Phœnix, which plied for six years on the Delaware.
Dr. James Renwick of Columbia said that “the Stevenses were but a few days later” than Fulton “in moving a boat with the required velocity,” and that “being shut out of the waters of New York by the monopoly of Livingston and Fulton, Stevens conceived the bold design of conveying his boat, the Phœnix, to the Delaware by sea, and this boat, which was so near reaping the honour of first success, was the first to navigate the ocean by the power of steam.” The piston-rod of the Phœnix was guided by slides instead of the parallel motion of the Watt engine, and the cylinder rested on the condenser. A point in which the superiority of the Phœnix over the Clermont was shown, was that the paddle-wheel of the Phœnix had a guard beam, which the Clermont lacked. The Phœnix was taken to Philadelphia by sea by Robert Livingston Stevens, son of Robert Stevens. He was accompanied on this voyage by Moses Rogers, to whom the title of “Pioneer Steam Navigator” has been given by American historians, partly on account of this voyage and partly because he was on board the auxiliary sailing ship Savannah on her memorable voyage to Europe.[16]