136 ALL AFLOAT 



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. 



She was the first of all sea-going steamers, 

 the first that ever crossed an ocean entirely 

 under steam, and the first that ever fired a 

 shot in action. But her claims and the 

 spurious counter-claims against her must both 

 be made quite clear. She was not the first 

 steamer that ever put out to sea, for the 

 Yankee Phoenix made the little coasting trip 

 from Hoboken to Philadelphia in 1809. She 

 was not the first steamer in Canadian salt 

 water, for the St John crossed the Bay of 

 Fundy in 1826. And she was not the first 

 vessel with a steam engine that crossed an 

 ocean, for the Yankee Savannah crossed 

 from Savannah to Liverpool in 1819. The 



