88 Mr Miller on the Original Inventors of' Steam Navigation, 



ble vessel, which had been built for him at Leith some years be- 

 fore, for the purpose of ascertaining the power of wheels in pro- 

 pelUng ships against wind and tide. 



This engine having been accordingly placed on board the 

 vessel at Carron in December of that year, an experiment of its 

 effect was made on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Like that at 

 Dalswinton, it completely satisfied my father of the practicability 

 of his scheme, but the vessel having been too slight for the 

 weight of the engine to attempt a voyage at sea, the apparatus 

 was unshipped and laid up in the store-house of the Carron 

 Company. 



Here, as noticed in my former statement, my father''s experi- 

 ments stopt. Symington, who had been employed under him, 

 being thereafter engaged for a considerable period in the con- 

 struction of machinery at Wanlockhead Mines, was again, after 

 the lapse of 12 years, employed by the late Lord Dundas, the 

 chairman of the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, to superintend 

 a series of experiments his Lordship was then setting on foot, for 

 dragging vessels along the canal, on my father's plan, by steam- 

 boats in place of horses. In 1803, he seems to have completed 

 a steam-boat or tug, called the " Charlotte Dundas,*" which 

 took in tow two vessels of 70 tons burden each, and dragged 

 them along the summit reach of the canal for 19| miles in six 

 hours against a strong wind a-head.> In 1801, Symington, whom 

 mj father always considered in the same light as he did every 

 other labourer or tradesman he employed about his different ves- 

 sels, took out letters-patent for the invention, — a proceeding of 

 which my father was not aware till a considerable time after- 

 wards, and which excited his warmest indignation. 



Such being Symington's pretensions, he comes forward in 

 the year 1824, long after steam-vessels had been erected by 

 others, and successfully used upon the river Clyde, and claims 

 from the Glasgow Steam- Boat Owners, a remuneration for the 

 invasion of his patent-right. " Being unable," as he says in his 

 memorial, " to extort any thing from them by the effects of law," 

 he resolved " to put his great confidence for relief in the muni- 

 ficence of his country, the liberality of the proprietors of steam- 

 vessels, and the feelings of others well affected to navigation by 

 the power of steam." 



