We alluded just now to the introduction of wheels on board sailing ships, and endeavoured to fix the date as approximately the middle of this century. The following account of the Great Storm on November 27, 1703 (in which no fewer than thirteen men-o’-war were lost, many more seriously damaged, and the Eddystone lighthouse destroyed), shows that tillers, as in Elizabethan days, were still used, and the wheel not yet invented. The following is the autograph report by Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel, commanding a squadron of eight ships in the Downs. The fact that the ships drifted all the way from the Downs to the Galloper (in the North Sea) gives some indication of the fury of that autumn hurricane. This dispatch is among the MSS. preserved in the British Museum:-- “On Saturday last soone in the morning wee had a most miserable Storme of Wind, which drove us to some Streights, for after wee had veerrd out more than three Cables of our best bower that Anchor broke, soon after our Tillar broke, and before we could secure our Rudder it broke from our Sterne, and has shaken our Stern Post that we prove very leakey, and had our four Chaine Pumps and a hand Pump goeing to keep us free. We lett go our Sheete Anchor, and veered out all the Cables to it, butt that did not ride us, butt wee drove near a sand called the Galloper, of which we saw the breach; I directed the Maine Mast to be cutt by the Board, after which we ridd fast. Of eight Ships that came out of the Downes four are missing, the _Association_, _Russell_, _Revenge_, and _Dorsettshire_; pray God they drove cleare of the sand.... “P.S. I doubt it has farr’d worse with the four Ships that have drove away than it has done with us: I have some hopes that some of them have drove to Sea; but if so they are without Anchors or Cables and may be without Masts: I judge it will be of Service if some Frigg^t were sent out to looke for them.” And yet there was at least one ship which had the wheel invention in the year 1747. In Hawke’s dispatch to the Secretary to the Admiralty, recording the action off Rochelle, in August, 1747, after relating that he kept his wind as close as possible so as to help the _Eagle_ and _Edinburgh_, which had lost her foretopmast, he relates that “this attempt of ours was frustrated by the _Eagle’s_ falling twice on board us, having had her wheel shot to pieces.” We may, therefore, fix the date of the first steering wheel as not earlier than 1703, and not later than 1747. CHAPTER XIII THE NINETEENTH CENTURY