They did not fail to persevere. When Molson found that ox-teams were required to tow her up St Mary's Current, below Montreal, he ordered a better engine of thirty horse-power from Boulton and Watt in England, and put it into the Swiftsure in 1811. This steamer was twice the size of the Accommodation, being 120 by 24 feet; and the Quebec Gazette waxed eloquent about her:
The Steam Boat arrived here from Montreal on Sunday. She started from Montreal at 5 o'clock on Saturday morning, and anchored at Three Rivers, which she left on Sunday morning at 5 o'clock, and arrived at the King's Wharf, Quebec, at half-past two; being only 24 hours and a half under way between the two cities, with a strong head wind all the way. She is most superbly fitted up, and offers accommodation for passengers in every respect equal to the best hotel in Canada. In short, for celerity and security, she well deserves the name of Swiftsure. America cannot boast of a more useful and expensive undertaking by one individual, than this of Mr Molson's. His Excellency, the Governor-in-chief, set out for Montreal on Tuesday afternoon, in the Steam Boat.
The following letter from Molson, for the information of Sir George Prevost, governor-general during the War of 1812, refers to one of the first tenders ever made, in any part of the world, to supply steamer transport for either naval or military purposes. It was received at Quebec by Commissary-General Robinson on February 6, 1813:
I received a letter from the Military Secretary, under date of the 15th Decr. last, informing me of His Excellency's approval of a Tender I had made of the Steam Boat for the use of Government; wherein I am likewise informed that you would receive instructions to cause an arrangement to be made for her Service during the ensuing Season. For the Transport of Troops and conveyance of light Stores, it will be necessary to fit her up in a manner so as to be best adapted for the purpose, which will be in my opinion something after the mode of a Transport. For a passage Boat she would have to be fitted up quite in a different manner. If you wish her to be arranged in any particular manner under the direction of any Person, I am agreeable. I should be glad to be informed if His Excellency wishes or expects that I shall sail in her myself, whether Government or I furnish the Officers and men to Navigate and Pilot her, the Engineer excepted, the fuel and all other necessarys that may be required for her use. I imagine the arrangement must be for the Season, not by the Trip, as Government may wish to detain her for particular purposes. Ensurance I do not believe can be effected for less than 30 p. cent for the Season, therefore I must take the risque upon myself.
Within five years of this tender Molson's St Lawrence Steamboat Company had six more steamers running. In 1823 a towboat company was formed, and the Hercules towed the Margaret from Quebec to Montreal. The well-known word 'tug' was soon brought into use from England, where it originated from the fact that the first towboat in the world was called The Tug. In 1836, before the first steam railway train ran from La Prairie to St Johns, the Torrance Line, in opposition to the Molson Line, was running the Canada, which was then the largest and fastest steamer in the whole New World. Meanwhile steam navigation had been practised on the Great Lakes for twenty years; for in 1817 the little Ontario and the big Frontenac made their first trips from Kingston to York (now Toronto). The Frontenac was built at Finkles Point, Ernestown, eighteen miles from Kingston, by Henry Teabout, an American who had been employed in the shipyards of Sackett's Harbour at the time of the abortive British attack in 1813. She was about seven hundred tons, schooner rigged, engined by Boulton and Watt, and built at a total cost of $135,000. A local paper said that 'her proportions strike the eye very agreeably, and good judges have pronounced this to be the best piece of naval architecture of the kind yet produced in America.'
Canals and steamers naturally served each other's turn. There was a great deal of canal building in the twenties. The Lachine Canal, opening up direct communication west of Montreal, was dug out by 1825, the Welland, across the Niagara peninsula, by 1829, and the Rideau, near Ottawa, by 1832. A few very small canals had preceded these; others were to follow them; and they were themselves in their infancy of size and usefulness. But the beginning had been made.
The early Canadian steamers and canals did credit to a poor and thinly peopled country. But none of them ranked as a pioneering achievement in the world at large. This kind of achievement was reserved for the Royal William, a vessel of such distinction in the history of shipping that her career must be followed out in detail.
