According to evidence given before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1817 by Mr. Seth Hunt of Louisiana, there were then ten steam vessels running between New York and Albany, two between New York and Connecticut ports, four or five between New York and New Jersey ports, besides ferryboats on the Hudson and East Rivers. There were also steamers on the Delaware, between Philadelphia and Trenton, Newcastle, and Wilmington; also steamers from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, which crossed the estuary of the Chesapeake. Steamers had been to New London and New Hartford. The _Powhatan_ steamer of New York was three days exposed to a gale in the open sea, after which it arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, and thence steamed up the James River to Richmond. At that time, according to this witness, there were on the Mississippi two steamers, the _Etna_ and _Vesuvius_, which were each of 450 tons, carried 280 tons of merchandise, 100 passengers, and 700 bales of cotton. Towards the middle of the last century numbers of steamboats were placed on the coastal and river services from New York. The Fulton ferryboats _Union_ and _William Cutting_ were both built in 1827; and in the following year the _De Witt Clinton_ was built in Albany for the passenger service between New York and Albany; she was 571 tons gross, more than any of her contemporaries. A notable vessel, then the fastest steamboat ever built, was the _Lexington_, which began to run in 1835 between Providence and New York. As the railway companies were formed about the same time, the competition between the steamboat companies and the railways was lively and fares were reduced with American thoroughness. The _Narragansett_ arrived at Providence in October 1836. She was fitted with a 300-horse-power horizontal engine, which was too heavy for her, for on her trial trip she rolled over with the directors of the company and their guests on board. Fortunately no lives were lost. In 1838, the _John W. Richmond_ appeared as the rival of the _Lexington_ and there were many exciting races between the two, but two years later the _Richmond_ was sold for employment elsewhere. The _Lexington_ was burnt in 1840, and the _Richmond_ met with a similar fate three years later. The Fall River Line was established in 1847 and has maintained the service to the present day.