1812.
84 STEAM NAVIGATION,
he had erred, and was misled by his engineer; and at the same timeI told him, that I intended to give Mr. Fulton my opinion on steamboats.
« The friends of Mr. Miller must have amongst their papers Mr.Fulton’s letter to me; for I left it with Mr. Miller.
« Two years thereafter, I had a letter from Mr. Fulton, letting meknow that he had constructed a steam boat from the different drawingsof the machinery I had sent him out, which was likely to answer theend, but required some improvement ön it. This letter I sent toMr. Miller for his information, which must, also, be amongst hispapers.
« This letter led me to think of the absurdity of writing my opinionto other countries, and not putting it in practice in my own country;and from these considerations I was roused to set on foot a steamboat, for which I made a number of different models before I wassatisfied. When I was convinced that they would answer the end, Icontracted with Messrs. John Wood and Company, Ship-builders inPort Glasgow, to build me a steam vessel according to my plan, 40feet keel, and 10 feet 6 inches beam, which I fitted up with an en-gine and paddles, and called her the Comet; because she was builtand finished the year that a comet appeared in the north-west partof Scotland. This vessel is the first steam boat built in Europe thatanswered the end, and is at this present time upon the best andsimplest method of any of them; for a person sitting in a cabin willhardly hear the engine at work. She plies on the Frith of Forth,betwixt the east end of the great canal and Newhaven, near Leith.The distance by water is 27 miles, which she performs, in ordinaryweather, in 34 hours up, and the same down."There were many at-tempts to make steam boats in this country before this one, but none ofthem ever answered the end; and even three years after the Come*was set a sailing, there was a number of our first-rate engineers joinedtogether, and obtained a patent for what they conceived a new disco-very on the paddles for impelling the vessel forward.