In 1831, there was built in Quebec, to run between there and Halifax, a steamer called the _Royal William_ (not to be confused with a vessel of the same name to which we shall refer presently). The engines were made by Boulton and Watt, and dispatched across the Atlantic to Montreal, where they were installed. In 1833, after taking on board over three hundred tons of coal at Pictou, Nova Scotia, she started on her journey to the South of England, and arrived off Cowes, Isle of Wight, after seventeen days, having covered a distance of 2,500 miles. There is some doubt as to whether she steamed the whole way, or whether she used her sails for part of the time. At any rate, she measured 176 feet long, 43 feet 10 inches wide (including her paddle-boxes), and after calling at Portsmouth, proceeded to Gravesend, and was afterwards sold to the Spanish Government. [Illustration: THE “SIRIUS” (1838). _From a Contemporary Drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum._] [Illustration: THE “ROYAL WILLIAM” (1838). _By permission of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Co._] We now come to the year 1838, in which a handful of steamers made history, and showed how uncalled-for had been the ridicule which the pessimists had cast at the steamship. With this year we reach the turning-point of the steamship, and from that date we may trace all those wonderful achievements which are still being added to year by year. Hitherto no vessel had crossed the Atlantic under steam power solely. Because of the large amount of fuel consumption which was a necessary failing of the early steamships, in proportion to the amount of steam developed, it was denied that it would ever be financially possible for steamers to run across oceans as the sailing packets were doing, even if they were capable of carrying sufficient fuel together with their passengers and cargo. But deeds were more eloquent than the expounding of theories, and the first surprise was quickly followed by another, far from inferior. The first of these epoch-making steamers was the _Sirius_. She was rigged as a brig, like many of the contemporary sailing ships which then carried mails, passengers, and cargo between the Old World and the New, whose unsavoury characters had earned for them the nickname of “coffin-brigs.” This _Sirius_ was a comparatively small ship of 703 tons, and quite small enough to cross the Atlantic in the weather which is to be found thereon. She measured only 178 feet along the keel, was 25½ feet wide, her hold was 18¼ feet deep, and her engines developed 320 horsepower. Built for the service between London and Cork, she was specially chartered for this transatlantic trip by the British Queen Steam Navigation Company, whose own vessel, the _British Queen_ (shown opposite page 102), was not yet ready, owing to the fact that one of her contractors had gone bankrupt. With ninety-four passengers on board, the _Sirius_ steamed away from London and called at Queenstown, where she coaled.