1891-92. ] NOTE ON OCEAN STEAM NAVIGATION. 171 
excited some curiosity. On Oct. 1oth she set sail from St. Petersburg 
on her homeward voyage and arrived at Savannah, Nov. 30th. There is 
no mention of the paddles having been used on the return voyage or 
indeed at any time after she left St. Petersburg. The writer in Scribner 
states that on the return of the “Savannah” to the United States the 
machinery was removed and she assumed her original character as a 
sailing ship. She was finally wrecked, and found a resting place on 
the south shore of Long Island. 
It may not be out of place to allude to information independently 
obtained with respect to both vessels. Some of the older citizens of 
Toronto will remember Captain Sutherland who commanded the steamer 
Magnet on Lake Ontario, before he met with his sad fate at the Desjardins 
Canal accident in 1858. He, it was, who thirty-four years earlier assisted 
in preparing the “ Royal William” for her long voyage to England, and 
actually accompanied her as second in command as far as Pictou, when 
she left Quebec on August 5th, 1833. Many of the particulars described 
by Messrs. Tully and Campbell I had from the lips of Captain Sutherland, 
who related them to a number of gentlemen of whom Sir George Simp- 
son, Governor of the Hudson Bay Company was one, on a passage by 
water from Toronto to Kingston about the year 1850. This independent 
testimony fully corroborates that which has been set forth respecting 
the “Royal William.” 
I had occasion ten years ago to make enquiries with regard to the 
“Savannah.” I addressed a citizen of Savannah whose acquaintance I 
had made after the war, when he visited Canada. This gentleman at 
my request examined all the records to be found in his native city 
respecting the ship “ Savannah” and her means of propulsion. He wrote 
me at length, and described the machinery attached to her as being of a 
somewhat rude description ; there was nothing to show, he informed me, 
that it had been continuously employed on the voyage. I quote part of 
his letter: “She resembled very much in mould an old United States 
frigate. The hull was surmounted with a stack and three masts—fore, 
main and mizen—and was provided with side wheels of a primitive 
pattern, left wholly exposed to view, and so arranged that they could 
at any time be unshipped and the vessel navigated by sails only.” 
Giving the “Savannah” the fullest credit for all that may be due to 
her, it cannot be affirmed that she crossed the Atlantic under steam, nor 
can it be pretended that she was the pioneer of the ocean steam-ship 
service of to-day, in any sense. It may with greater truth be held that 
the “Savannah” had a deterring influence on the further efforts of enter- 
prising ship-builders, and that the introduction of transatlantic steam- 
