of Steam-Navigation. l$f 
ments with her at my own expence ; experiments unconnected 
with any sordid view, and which aimed at nothing but promo- 
ting the general welfare of mankind. 
66 The light in which the utility of this invention shall be 
viewed by the public, will enable me to judge how far it may 
be proper to make known another system, founded upon a com- 
bination of the powers of an improved artillery with those of 
an improved naval architecture. 
66 That system is of such a nature, as, from its very great su- 
periority, to give a decided advantage to the State by which it 
shall be first adopted. My only view, however, being to pro- 
mote the happiness of mankind, a discovery of this system will 
not be made, without having just reason to expect that it will 
be employed for that beneficent end 
It may be readily believed, that the hint contained in this 
publication of my father’s, of his intention to apply the power 
of steam to the whole of his double and triple vessels, was not 
hastily thrown out. In the course of his various experiments 
* On the estimation in which my father was held by his contemporaries, at 
the period of this publication, I may be pardoned for appealing to the follow- 
ing passage in the Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland, by his distinguished 
kinsman the late Sir John Dalrymple, Bart. 
“ Mr Miller, a banker, of great wealth and ancient family. He is the 
same person who invented and improved the carronade-gun, and who has late- 
ly invented an improvement upon shipping of perhaps still greater importance 
to a naval nation, — a triple ship, worked by wheels in the two separations be- 
tween the three vessels, in a calm, and when the wind is contrary; which has 
the three following advantages,— that she advances in a calm when other ves- 
sels stop, or against the wind when other vessels are driven back ; that she 
makes the whole sea-coast of the world a harbour by the shallow water which 
she draws ; and that she saves from shipwreck on sea-coasts, because, by means 
of her wheels, she can be kept off any coast in time of danger. I know not 
his equal in this island in point of invention, sagacity to regulate it, industry 
and spirit. 
“ Mr Miller lately sent a present of his book, with plates, to describe the 
vessel and its principles, to every Sovereign of Europe, and also to the Ame- 
rican States, because he thought that the invention ought to be the property 
of human kind. Copies of it were also sent to the Royal Society at London, 
the Advocates’ Library in Scotland, and the University Libraries of that 
country, and, I believe, also of England ; and he constructed, and tried in the 
sea, several of these vessels, to ascertain which was the best form, at his own 
expence, which has been a very great one.” 
