Though Mr. Bell had completed his Comet in January, 1812, more than six months elapsed before he announced to the public, through the medium of an advertisement in the local papers of the period,[98] his intention to employ her for trading purposes on the Clyde. The notice is a modest but curious and interesting document. He does not profess to make more than one passage each day between Glasgow and Greenock, a distance of 22 miles, and, doubtful of its pecuniary success, he informs the public that he intends to continue “his establishment at Helensburgh Baths,” to which the Comet will carry passengers on her return journey from Greenock This little vessel, of which the following is an illustration as she appeared on the Clyde passing Dumbarton, was designed and constructed by Mr. John Wood, shipbuilder, Port Glasgow. She was 40 feet in length of keel, and 10½ feet beam; her engines (which cost 192l.) were 4 horse-power; and her draught of water 4 feet. She continued to ply for a short time between Glasgow and Greenock, but under many difficulties.[99]
Though the engine of the Comet was only of 4 horse-power, driving two small wheels, one on each side, it must, however, have performed its work, on the whole, exceedingly well to have propelled a vessel of 30 tons burthen at the rate Mr. Bell states in his letter published in the Caledonian Mercury.
and, afterwards, on the Forth.
But the Comet does not appear to have proved remunerative to her enterprising owner on the line on which he had placed her.[100] The prejudice raised against steam navigation by rival interests, which Fulton had previously experienced on the Hudson, was equally strong on the Clyde, and seriously injured Mr. Bell’s first undertaking. He was consequently obliged to withdraw her from this station and to employ her for some months as an excursion-boat on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, extending his cruises to the shores of England when the weather permitted, to show the superior advantages of steam-boat navigation over other modes of transit to the public, many of whom viewed her with feelings of mingled awe and superstition. Afterwards he transferred her to the Forth, where she ran for a considerable time between the extremity of the Forth and Clyde Canal and Newhaven, near Edinburgh. Here she seems to have done her work most efficiently, for Mr. Bell states that she made the voyage, a distance of 27 miles, on the average, in three and a half hours, being at the rate of more than 7½ miles an hour.[101]
Extraordinary progress of ship-building on the Clyde.
Although the Comet at first proved commercially unsuccessful, there is no part of Europe where the progress in the construction of steamers has been either so great or so astonishing as on the Clyde. From a silvery salmon stream it has become in half a century by far the largest and most important shipbuilding river in the world; but, alas, its once limpid stream has long since ceased to be either silvery or pure.[102] Ancient historians have told us that when the first Punic war roused the citizens of Rome to extraordinary exertions in the equipment of a fleet for the destruction of the maritime supremacy of Carthage, the banks of the Tiber resounded with the axe and the hammer, and that the extent of the ship-building operations then carried on was a matter not merely of surprise, but of wonder. How insignificant, however, was that sound when compared with that of the steam hammer and the anvil and the din of the work now to be heard on the banks of the Clyde. For miles on both sides of the river stupendous ship-building yards line its banks, employing tens of thousands of hardy and skilled mechanics earning their daily bread, as God has destined all men to do, by “the sweat of their brow,” relieved from oppressive taxation, and free from anything approaching the thraldom of slavery, the curse of ancient Rome. Along those banks there is now annually constructed a much larger amount of steam tonnage than in all the other ports of Europe combined, those of England alone excepted. What a contrast to the days of Henry Bell!—days almost within my own recollection.
By comparing the Clyde with the Tiber, both in themselves comparatively insignificant rivers—the one made important by the power of the Cæsars, the other by the wisdom and energy of the Clyde trustees, it is to be hoped that more than one lesson may be learned from the character of the employment on their respective banks. The clamour on the Tiber when Rome resolved to achieve maritime greatness, indicated war, terrible war, with Carthage; but the sounds on the Clyde proclaim a mission of peace and good-will among nations, for nearly all the ships constructed there are destined to carry to other lands the fabrics of our workshops and the products of our mills, and with them the civilizing and enlightening influence resulting from the skill and genius of our artisans.[103]
Great value and importance of the private building yards.
Should, however, the necessity arise, these numerous ship-building yards and thousands of mechanics could instantly be made available for the construction of vessels of war. If, therefore, a large naval force be still unhappily necessary, [and I am far from saying that it is not], should we not take into consideration, when we frame our naval estimates, the vast resources we have at our command in our private yards,[104] (infinitely greater as these are than those of all other nations in Europe combined), for producing on an emergency, whatever extra number of vessels of war we may then require? Our private building yards are in themselves the bases of a great fleet.[105]