One might have supposed that Francis Pettit Smith would derive some substantial benefit from his invention, or at least that the Ship Propeller Company would distribute large dividends among their proprietors. Nothing of the kind. Smith spent his money, his labour, and his ingenuity in conferring a great public benefit without receiving any adequate reward; and the company, instead of distributing dividends, lost about 50,000L. in introducing this great invention; after which, in 1856, the patent-right expired. Three hundred and twenty-seven ships and vessels of all classes in the Royal Navy had then been fitted with the screw propeller, and a much larger number in the merchant service; but since that time the number of screw propellers constructed is to be counted by thousands. In his comparatively impoverished condition it was found necessary to do something for the inventor. The Civil Engineers, with Robert Stephenson, M.P., in the chair, entertained him at a dinner and presented him with a handsome salver and claret jug. And that he might have something to put upon his salver and into his claret jug, a number of his friends and admirers subscribed over 2000L. as a testimonial. The Government appointed him Curator of the Patent Museum at South Kensington; the Queen granted him a pension on the Civil List for 200L. a year; he was raised to the honour of knighthood in 1871, and three years later he died. Francis Pettit Smith was not a great inventor. He had, like many others, invented a screw propeller. But, while those others had given up the idea of prosecuting it to its completion, Smith stuck to his invention with determined tenacity, and never let it go until he had secured for it a complete triumph. As Mr. Stephenson observed at the engineer's meeting: "Mr. Smith had worked from a platform which might have been raised by others, as Watt had done, and as other great men had done; but he had made a stride in advance which was almost tantamount to a new invention. It was impossible to overrate the advantages which this and other countries had derived from his untiring and devoted patience in prosecuting the invention to a successful issue." Baron Charles Dupin compared the farmer Smith with the barber Arkwright: "He had the same perseverance and the same indomitable courage. These two moral qualities enabled him to triumph over every obstacle." This was the merit of "Screw" Smith--that he was determined to realize what his predecessors had dreamt of achieving; and he eventually accomplished his great purpose. Footnotes for Chapter II. [1] In the Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects for 1860, it was pointed out that the general dimensions and form of bottom of this ship were very similar to the most famous line-of-battle ships built down to the end of last century, some of which were then in existence.