There is, however, no mention of any vessel propelled by _steam_ till M. de Navarette directed attention to this subject in a letter[13] received by him from Thomas Gonzales, Director of the Royal Archives of Simancas of Spain, with an account of an experiment of the year 1543, in which a vessel is said to have been propelled by something resembling a steam-engine. [Sidenote: Blasco de Garay, story of his experiment, 1543.] The substance of this letter is to the effect that, in that year, one Blasco de Garay, proposed to the Emperor Charles V., the construction of an engine (_ingenio_) capable of propelling large vessels in a calm, and without the use of sails or oars. In spite of the opposition this project encountered, the Emperor consented to witness the experiment, which was accordingly made in the _Trinity_, a vessel of 200 tons, laden with corn, in the port of Barcelona, on the 17th June, 1543. Garay, however, would not uncover his machinery, or exhibit it publicly: but it was evident that it consisted of a cauldron of boiling water (_una gran caldera de agua hirviendo_) and of two wheels set in motion by that means, and applied externally on each side (_banda_) of the vessel. The persons commissioned by the Emperor to report on the invention seem to have approved it, commending specially the readiness with which the vessel tacked. The treasurer Ravago, however, observed that a ship with the proposed machinery could not go faster than two leagues in three hours; that the apparatus was complex and expensive; and that there was danger of the boiler bursting. The other commissioners maintained that such a vessel might go at the rate of a league an hour, and would tack in half the time required by an ordinary ship. When the exhibition was over, Garay removed the apparatus from the _Trinity_, depositing the wood-work in the arsenal at Barcelona, but retaining himself the rest of the machinery. Notwithstanding, however, the objections urged by Ravago, the Emperor was inclined to favour his project, but his attention at the time was engrossed by other matters.[14] Garay was, however, promoted and received a sum of money, besides the expenses of the experiment made at Barcelona. The letter concludes with the following statement:— “This is the substance of the despatches and of the original registers preserved in the royal archives of Simancas, among the State papers of the province of Catalonia, and of those of the Secretary of War (department of land and sea), in the said year, 1543.”