THE "ROBERT F. STOCKTON." 



105 



in length. On her trial trip on the Thames, made in January of the following year, 

 she accomplished a distance of nine miles in about half an hour with the tide, proving the 

 speed through the water to be between eleven and twelve miles an hour. On her second trial, 

 between Southwark and Waterloo Bridges, she took in tow four laden barges with upright 

 j ides and square ends, having a beam of fifteen feet each, and drawing four feet six inches of 

 water. One of these was lashed on each side, the other two being towed astern, and though 

 the weight of the whole must have been close upon 400 tons, and a considerable resistance 



THE FIRST CUNARD STEAMER. 



was offered by their forms, the steamer towed them at the rate of 5| miles an hour in 

 slack water, or in eleven minutes between the two bridges, a distance of one mile. 



These experiments having been considered in every way satisfactory, the Robert 

 F. Stockton left England for the United States in the beginning of April, 1839, under 

 the command of Captain Cram of the American merchant service. Her crew consisted 

 of four men and a boy; and having accomplished the voyage under sail in forty days, 

 Captain Cram was presented with the freedom of the city of New York for his daring 

 in crossing the Atlantic in so small a craft, constructed only for river navigation. 



The first steamer to cross the Atlantic was the Savannah, of 300 tons, which arrived 

 in Liverpool from Savannah, Georgia, in thirty-one days, her voyage having been made 

 partly under sail. So to America belongs the credit of having shown the practicability 

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