More than ten years elapsed before Symington, the builder of Miller’s engines, found another patron. In 1801, Thomas, first Lord Dundas, employed him to fit up a steam-boat for the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, in which he was a large shareholder. “Having,” says Lindsay,(25) “availed himself of the many improvements made by Watt and others, Symington patented his new engine on the 14th of March of that year, and fitting it on board the _Charlotte Dundas_, named after his lordship’s daughter, produced, in the opinion of most writers who have carefully and impartially inquired into this interesting subject, ‘the first _practical steam-boat_.’” In March, 1802, the _Charlotte Dundas_ made her trial trip on the canal. It was in one sense a fortunate day for the experiment, for a gale of wind blew, and no other vessel attempted to move to windward. The little steamer, towing two barges of seventy tons burden, accomplished the trip to Port Dundas, Glasgow, a distance of 19½ miles, in six hours, or at the rate of 3¼ miles per hour. Lord Dundas, who was on board, thought favourably of the experiment, and in a letter of introduction to the Duke of Bridgewater, recommended Symington’s new engine to his notice. His grace almost immediately gave him an order to construct eight vessels similar to the _Charlotte Dundas_, and the struggling engineer naturally thought that his fortune was made. Alas! before the arrangements could be consummated the duke died, and the committee who had charge of the canal after his decease, came to the conclusion that the wash from steam-boats would injure its banks. Woodcroft considers that “this vessel might, from the simplicity of its machinery, have been at work to this day with such ordinary repairs as are now occasionally required for all steam-boats,” and claims that to Symington belonged “the undoubted merit of having combined for the first time those improvements which constitute the _present system of steam navigation_.” The success of the engine consisted in this: that, “after placing in a boat a double-acting reciprocating engine, he _attached his crank to the axis of the paddle-wheel_,” a combination on which there has been no improvement to the present day, as rotatory motion is secured without the interposition of a lever or beam. So much for the engine, but how about the poor engineer? This boat was laid up in a creek of the canal, where she remained for many years exposed as a curiosity, and perhaps also as a warning to ambitious speculators. Symington’s means were nearly exhausted, and after having had to fight Taylor at law in regard to some of the minor inventions employed, we find him in 1825 receiving the miserable gift of £100 from the Privy Purse, and later, a further sum of £50. What a return for labours which so distinctly led to our present system of steam navigation! [Illustration: SYMINGTON.]