“Taylor being poor, and a scholar, not a mechanician, could do nothing without Mr. Miller’s assistance. Symington was the only one of the three who persevered. He deserves credit for having done so, but not for the manner in which he did it, for without any communication with Messrs. Miller and Taylor, the true inventors, he took out a patent for the construction of steamboats in 1801. Through the interest of Lord Dundas, he was able, in 1803, to fit up a new steamboat for the Forth and Clyde Canal Co., and this vessel, called the CHARLOTTE DUNDAS, was tried in towing a couple of barges upon the canal with entire success, except in one respect, which was that the agitation of the water by the paddles was found to wash down the banks in an alarming manner. For this reason the Canal Co. resolved to give up the project, and the vessel was, therefore, laid aside. It lay on the bank at Lock 16 for many years, generally looked on, of course, as a monument of misdirected ingenuity, but, as we shall presently see, it did not lie there altogether in vain. Meantime Symington had been in communication with the Duke of Bridgewater, with the object of introducing steam towage on the Bridgewater Canal, and had actually received a trial order, when, unfortunately, the Duke died, and the project was closed. Here Symington vanishes likewise from the active part of this history. Miller died in 1815, a comparatively poor man, having exhausted his fortune by improvements and experiments. It has been stated by his son that he spent fully £30,000 in projects of a purely public nature. Taylor died in 1824, in straitened circumstances, leaving a widow and daughters, to whom the Government granted a pension of £50 a year.” “The experiments at Carron, in 1789, had been witnessed by a young man named Henry Bell, a working mason originally, as it appears, afterwards a humble kind of engineer in Glasgow, and later an hotel proprietor at Helensburgh. Bell never lost sight of the idea, and when Symington ceased experimenting in 1803 he took up the project. At the same time an ingenious American, named Fulton, comes into the field. He, in company with Bell, visited the CHARLOTTE DUNDAS in 1803, and Bell gave to Fulton drawings of the machinery which he (Bell) had obtained, partly from Mr. Miller and partly from Symington.” [Illustration: Small sailboat] FOOTNOTES: [3] “Chambers’ Journal.” [4] Hy. Fry, ex Pres. Dominion B/T. Canada and Lloyd’s Agent at Quebec, author of a “History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation.” 1896. [5] “Chambers’ Journal.” [6] Hy. Fry. [7] “Chambers’ Journal.” [8] “Chambers’ Journal,” 1857. CHAPTER II. Fulton (1807).—The CLERMONT, the first Passenger Steam-boat in the world.—Narrative of her first Voyage.—Steam Navigation in Canadian Waters.—The first Steamers on the St. Lawrence.—The ACCOMMODATION (1809).—SWIFTSURE and CAR OF COMMERCE (1813), and the QUEBEC (1817).