She was the first of all sea-going steamers, the first that ever crossed an ocean entirely under steam, and the first that ever fired a shot in action. But her claims and the spurious counter-claims against her must both be made quite clear. She was not the first steamer that ever put out to sea, for the Yankee _Phoenix_ made the little coasting trip from Hoboken to Philadelphia in 1809. She was not the first steamer in Canadian salt water, for the _St John_ crossed the Bay of Fundy in 1826. And she was not the first vessel with a steam engine that crossed an ocean, for the Yankee _Savannah_ crossed from Savannah to Liverpool in 1819. The {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, indeed, 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. {138} M'Dougall was a seaman of indomitable perseverance, as his famous voyage to England shows. Goudie, though only twenty-one, was a most capable naval architect, born in Canada and taught his profession in Scotland. His father was a naval architect before him and had built several British vessels on the Great Lakes for service against the Americans during the War of 1812. Both Goudie and Henry lived to retell their tale in 1891, when the Canadian government put up a tablet to commemorate what pioneering work the _Royal William_ had done, both for the inter-colonial and inter-imperial connection.