The task of bringing the little steam-packet round by sea from the Clyde to the Thames, was intrusted to an ex-naval officer named Dodd, a man of considerable and diverse abilities. He projected the Thames tunnel, proposing to carry it across from Gravesend to Tilbury, at an estimated cost of under £16,000. According to an account of the voyage which Dodd himself published in the “Morning Chronicle” of the 15th June, 1815, and afterwards embodied in his evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, Dodd sailed from Glasgow about the middle of May with a crew of eight persons—a mate, an engineer, a stoker, four seamen, and a cabin-boy. His voyage at first was far from auspicious. The weather was stormy, the sea ran high in the strait which separates Scotland from Ireland, and either through ignorance or negligence, the pilot during the night altered the course of the vessel, so that it ran a great risk of being wrecked. Dodd had given orders that the steamer should be steered so as to gain the Irish coast by the morning; but at break of day a heavy gale was blowing, and it was discovered that, instead of being off the coast of Ireland, they were within half-a-league off a lee shore, rock bound, about two miles to the north of Port Patrick. Relying entirely upon the efficiency of his engine, Dodd at once laid the vessel’s head directly to windward, and ordered the log to be kept constantly going. The plan succeeded. The THAMES began slowly to clear the shore, going direct in the wind’s eye at the rate of something more than three knots an hour. On the 24th of May the voyagers arrived safely at Dublin, where they were joined by a Mr. Weld and his wife. Mrs. Weld has the proud distinction of having been the first lady passenger to cross the St. George’s Channel on a steamboat. Mr. Weld kept a journal, from which the following is an extract:—