Hostile gunners would wing a paddle-steamer as effectuaily as a sportsman wings a bird, and all the plating in the world would render such a ship a mere helpless log on the water.
The Admiralty could no longer defer the use of this important invention. Like all good things, it made its way slowly and by degrees. The royal naval authorities, who in 1833 backed the side paddles, have since adopted the screw in most of the ships-of-war. In all long sea-going voyages, also, the screw is now the favourite mode of propulsion. Screw ships of prodigious size are now built and launched in all the ship-building ports of Britain, and are sent out to navigate in every part of the world.
The introduction of iron as the material for shipbuilding has immensely advanced the interests of steam navigation, as it enables the builders to construct vessels of great size with the finest lines, so as to attain the highest rates of speed.
One might have supposed that Francis Pettit Smith would derive some substantial benefit from his invention, or at least that the Ship Propeller Company would distribute large dividends among their proprietors. Nothing of the kind. Smith spent his money, his labour, and his ingenuity in conferring a great public benefit without receiving any adequate reward; and the company, instead of distributing dividends, lost about 50,000L. in introducing this great invention; after which, in 1856, the patent-right expired. Three hundred and twenty-seven ships and vessels of all classes in the Royal Navy had then been fitted with the screw propeller, and a much larger number in the merchant service; but since that time the number of screw propellers constructed is to be counted by thousands.
In his comparatively impoverished condition it was found necessary to do something for the inventor. The Civil Engineers, with Robert Stephenson, M.P., in the chair, entertained him at a dinner and presented him with a handsome salver and claret jug.
And that he might have something to put upon his salver and into his claret jug, a number of his friends and admirers subscribed over 2000L. as a testimonial. The Government appointed him Curator of the Patent Museum at South Kensington; the Queen granted him a pension on the Civil List for 200L. a year; he was raised to the honour of knighthood in l87l, and three years later he died.
Francis Pettit Smith was not a great inventor. He had, like many others, invented a screw propeller. But, while those others had given up the idea of prosecuting it to its completion, Smith stuck to his invention with determined tenacity, and never let it go until he had secured for it a complete triumph. As Mr.
Stephenson observed at the engineer's meeting: "Mr. Smith had worked from a platform which might have been raised by others, as Watt had done, and as other great men had done; but he had made a stride in advance which was almost tantamount to a new invention.
It was impossible to overrate the advantages which this and other countries had derived from his untiring and devoted patience in prosecuting the invention to a successful issue." Baron Charles Dupin compared the farmer Smith with the barber Arkwright: "He had the same perseverance and the same indomitable courage.
These two moral qualities enabled him to triumph over every obstacle." This was the merit of "Screw" Smith--that he was determined to realize what his predecessors had dreamt of achieving; and he eventually accomplished his great purpose.
Footnotes for Chapter II.
In the Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects for 1860, it was pointed out that the general dimensions and form of bottom of this ship were very similar to the most famous line-of-battle ships built down to the end of last century, some of which were then in existence.
According to the calculation of Mr. Chatfield, of Her Majesty's dockyard at Plymouth, in a paper read before the British Association in 1841 on shipbuilding.
The phrase "wooden walls" is derived from the Greek. When the city of Athens was once in danger of being attacked and destroyed, the oracle of Delphi was consulted. The inhabitants were told that there was no safety for them but in their "wooden walls,"--that is their shipping. As they had then a powerful fleet, the oracle gave them rational advice, which had the effect of saving the Athenian people.
An account of these is given by Bennet Woodcraft in his Sketch of the Origin and Progress of Steam Navigation, London, 1848.
See Industrial Biography, pp. 183-197,The story is told in Scribner's Monthly Illustrated Magazine, for April 1879. Ericsson's modest bill was only $15,000 for two years' labour. He was put off from year to year, and at length the Government refused to pay the amount. "The American Government," says the editor of Scribner, "will not appropriate the money to pay it, and that is all. It is said to be the nature of republics to be ungrateful; but must they also be dishonest?"Memoirs of the Life and Services of Rear-Admiral Sir William Symonds, Kt., p. 332.
