FIRST AMERICAN STEAMERS. 



85 



the minor inventions employed,, we find him in 1825 receiving the miserable gift of 100 

 from the Privy Purse, and later, a further sum of 50. What a return for labours which 

 so distinctly led to our present system of steam navigation ! 



In 1797, an experiment which took place in the neighbourhood of Liverpool is recorded 

 in the Monthly Magazine, on oars worked by steam; the engine made eighteen strokes 

 per minute, and propelled a vessel, heavily laden with copper slag, through the Sankey 

 Canal. The claims of other countries have also been put forth, but the first attempts at 



.SYMIXUTON. 



practical steam navigation belong to Scotland, and, as we shall see, were improved to such 

 an extent in America, that to that country belongs the credit of having first organised 

 a steam-boat line for continuous and paying traffic. 



The Americans had at an early period turned their attention to new modes of propelling 

 vessels. As early as 1784, James Rumsey proposed to General Washington a project of 

 steam navigation, but having been refused a patent in Pennsylvania, came to England, 

 and succeeded in inducing a wealthy countryman of his own, then in London, and others 

 to disburse the expenses of an experiment, for which he afterwards obtained a patent. 

 In this also oars were worked by steam. A couple of years later, Fitch obtained from the 

 States of Pennsylvania and New York the exclusive right to run steamers on their waters, 

 and is said to have attained with one of his vessels the rate of four or five miles an hour 



