It is when we come to Jonathan Hulls or Hull that we encounter the first Englishman to apply steam to ships. Hulls was a native of Gloucestershire, who, in 1736, patented a method of propelling vessels by steam, and in the following year issued a booklet on the subject of his invention which was subsequently reprinted. The title reads thus: “A Description and Draught of a New-Invented Machine for Carrying Vessels or ships out of or into any harbour, port or river, against wind and tide or in a calm ... by Jonathan Hulls.” His idea was to provide a steam tug so that it should be able to render beneficial service to those sailing ships accepting it. His preference for placing the “machine,” or engines, into a separate ship, and thus using her as a tug-boat, instead of installing the engines on board each vessel was because he believed the “machine” might be thought cumbersome and take up too much room in a vessel laden with cargo. But besides the advantage of having a tow-boat always in readiness in any port, he suggested that an old ship which was not able to go far abroad could well be adapted for receiving this “machine.” “In some convenient part of the Tow-Boat,” he explains, “there is placed a Vessel about two-thirds full of Water, with the Top close shut. This Vessel being kept boiling, rarefies the Water into a Steam: this Steam being convey’d thro’ a large Pipe into a Cylindrical Vessel and there condens’d, makes a Vacuum, which causes the weight of the Atmosphere to press on this Vessel, and so presses down a Piston that is fitted into this Cylindrical Vessel in the same manner as in Mr. Newcomen’s Engine, with which he raises Water by Fire.” It will thus be seen that Hulls was an adapter of Newcomen’s atmospherical engine to marine purposes rather than an actual inventor of something new and unheard of. But Hulls seems to have anticipated this criticism, for he adds: “if it should be said that this is not a New Invention, because I make use of the same Power to drive my Machine that others have made use of to Drive theirs for other Purposes, I Answer, The Application of this Power is no more than the Application of any common and known Instrument used in Mechanism for new-invented Purposes.” [Illustration: JONATHAN HULLS’ STEAM TUG-BOAT. _After the Drawing attached to his Specification for the Patent._]