Mr. Clyde was always to the front where new improvements were to be made. The Cramp Company, having taken the lead in these new departures in engine construction at the beginning, have continued to remain there. They have ceased to construct wooden vessels, sail or steam, since the construction of the “Clyde,” of iron. This vessel was for Mr. Thomas Clyde, and preceded the “G. W. Clyde.” By 1870 the deplorable state of the American merchant marine attracted the attention of the Administration and Congress. The House of Representatives organized a select committee to investigate the causes of its decline, with instructions to submit in its report suggestion or recommendation of remedy. This is known in Congressional history as the “Lynch Committee,” from its Chairman, the Honorable John R. Lynch, Member of Congress, of Maine. This committee surveyed the situation exhaustively, taking the statements of a large number of ship-owners and ship-builders, and while there was considerable divergence of views as to the sum-total of causes, there was little or no diversity of opinion as to the most immediate and effective remedy. This committee, after thorough investigation and mature deliberation, reported that, in view of the policy of foreign maritime nations, particularly Great Britain, in the way of subsidies and other methods of aiding and promoting their merchant marines, it would be impossible for American ship-owners to compete with them in the absence of similar expedients on the part of our own government. In other words, the Lynch Committee reported in effect that the primary requisite toward a resurrection of the American merchant marine would be the adoption of a policy of subvention, or, as it is commonly termed, subsidy.