STEAMERS 137 



Phoenix and St John call for no explanation. 

 The Savannah does, especially in view of the 

 claims so freely made and allowed for her as 

 being the first regular steamer to cross an 

 ocean. To begin with, she was not a regular 

 sea-going steamer with auxiliary sails like 

 the Royal William, but a so-called clipper- 

 built, full-rigged ship of three hundred tons 

 with a small auxiliary engine and paddle- 

 wheels made to be let down her sides when the 

 wind failed. She did not even steam against 

 head winds, but tacked. She took a month to 

 make Liverpool, and she used steam for only 

 eighty hours altogether. She could not, in- 

 deed, have done much more, because she carried 

 only seventy-five tons of coal and twenty- 

 five cords of wood, and she made port with 

 plenty of fuel left. Her original log (the 

 official record every vessel keeps) disproves 

 the whole case mistakenly made out for her 

 by some far too zealous advocates. 



The claims of the Royal William are proved 

 by ample contemporary evidence, as well as 

 by the subsequent statements of her master, 

 John M'Dougall, her builder, James Goudie, 

 and John Henry, the Quebec founder who 

 made some castings for her engines the year 

 after they had been put into her at Montreal. 



