The first steamer ordered by the company to be built in the island was the first _King Orry_, by John Winram, with engines by Robert Napier. This boat was the last of the company’s wooden paddle-steamers. She was a very reliable boat but not particularly fast, for she usually took about seven hours for the trip each way. In 1843 the _Queen of the Isle_ was relieved of her engines, sold, and turned into a full-rigged sailing ship and met her fate off the Falkland Islands. The _Ben-my-Chree_, a three-masted schooner, the first of the company’s steamers to be built of iron, was fitted with the _Queen of the Isle’s_ engines. The _Tynwald_, a larger steamer still, followed in 1845, and was herself followed by the _Mona’s Queen_, a rather smaller vessel but faster, and bearing a figure-head which the carver said was a likeness of Queen Victoria; be that as it may, the vessel was named in commemoration of the visit of the Queen to the island in 1847. Hitherto the company’s steamers had been of little more than local interest; the _Douglas_ was now ordered and she acquired international fame. This vessel was the first of the Manx boats in which the straight stem was adopted. She was built in 1858; her length between perpendiculars was 205 feet, with a beam of 26 feet and a depth of 14 feet, and a gross tonnage of 700. The _Tynwald_, which was of the same tonnage was 188 feet long, by 27 feet beam, and 13 feet 6 inches depth. The _Douglas_ was thus longer in proportion to her beam than any of her predecessors, and being powerfully engined, made 17¹⁄₄ knots on her trial trip. She did the passage between Liverpool and Douglas in 4 hours and 20 minutes, and was the fastest sea-going paddle-steamer afloat. The situation at this time between the Northern and Southern States of the United States of America was becoming strained, and there were already indications of the approaching conflict. After four years’ service the _Douglas_ was sold, through a third party, to the Confederate agents. [Illustration: THE “TYNWALD” (I.). BUILT 1846.]