84< Mr Miller on the Indention and Practice 
their successful accomplishment, his own personal credit and 
consideration seemed to be almost entirely forgotten ; and had 
his talents and his means been in all respects equal to his own 
public spirited and truly patriotic wishes, there was hardly any 
limit within which his prudence would have set bounds to his 
exertions for the benefit of his country. 
The present is not a fit occasion for me to enter into a detail 
of the numerous and important schemes of improvement in 
which my father was embarked at various periods of his life. 
It may here be enough to say, that, among others, he bestowed 
much thought, and expended very large sums, on the im- 
provement of artillery and naval architecture. 
One of the immediate results of his experiments of the first 
description, was the fortunate and well known invention of the 
carronade ; and it was in the course of his speculations and ex- 
periments on the latter, that he was led to think of devising 
some improved modes of constructing or propelling vessels in 
circumstances where the ordinary resources of the nautical art 
were insufficient or unavailing. Among these the construction 
of double and triple vessels, to be moved by wheels placed in 
proper situations, had occurred to him as calculated to prove 
of essential service ; and, accordingly, he did not hesitate in 
building and equipping several vessels of this description, 
which he considered as fully warranting his own previous ex- 
pectations of advantage. 
Having so far satisfied himself of the utility of this scheme, 
he printed at Edinburgh a work, in both the English and 
French languages, which he entitled, u The Elevation, Section, 
Plan, and Views of a Triple Vessel, and of Wheels, with ex- 
planations of the figures in the engraving ; and a short account 
of the properties and advantages of the invention.'” 
This work is here peculiarly interesting, not only as dis- 
playing my father’s great exertions for the improvement of na- 
val architecture, but by recording the first announcement of his 
intention to employ a power more adequate to the ends in view 
than that either of human strength or of ordinary mechanical 
contrivance. It is with this view that I deem it necessary to 
quote a few of the more important passages of the work. 
