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Art. XIV. — A Description and Draught of a New Invented 
Machine, for carrying Vessels or Ships out of or into any 
Harbour , Port or River , against Wind and Tide , or in a 
Calm. By Jonathan Hulls. With a Plate. 
.A.S the history of the invention of the Steam-boat is but imper- 
fectly known in this country, and still less on the Continent, we 
have long been desirous of laying before our readers the diffe- 
rent documents upon which it is founded. 
The great rarity of the pamphlet published at London in 
1737, by Jonathan Hulls, has hitherto prevented us from car- 
rying this wish into effect ; but we are now able to reprint the 
portion of it on the steam-boat, from a copy presented to the 
Library of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, by its distinguish- 
ed president, Sir Walter Scott. 
Mr Hulls’s patent, which is prefixed to the pamphlet, was 
signed on the 21st December 1736. The part of the pamphlet 
which we have not printed, contains nothing more than a series 
of elementary propositions in mechanics and pneumatics, which 
have no greater connexion with the steam-boat than with any 
other mechanical and pneumatical engine. 
“ Whereas several persons concerned in the navigation, have 
desired some account of my invention for carrying ships out of and 
into harbours, ports and rivers, when they have not a fair wind ; 
But I could not fully describe this machine , without writing 
a small treatise of the same, in which I shall endeavour to de- 
monstrate the possibility and probability of the matter undertaken. 
“ There is one great hardship lies too commonly upon those 
who propose to advance some new, though useful, scheme for 
the public benefit : the world abounding more in rash cen- 
sure than in a candid and unprejudiced estimation of things, if 
a person does not answer their expectation in every point ; instead 
of friendly treatment for his good intentions, he too often meets 
with ridicule and contempt. 
“ But I hope that this will not be my case ; but that they will 
form a judgment of my present undertaking only from trial. 
