APPENDIX (N.2) 
Arrexpix (N. 2.) 
NARRATIVE of the Oricin and ProcrEss of STEAM NAviGATION. 
  
ALTHOUGH numerous accounts have been given, in a detached form, of the rise and 
progress of steam navigation, it is believed that hitherto no conjoined statement has 
been drawn up of the various schemes which have been laid before the public for carrying 
this admirable invention into practice. ~The object, therefore, of this paper is to bring 
under review the different accounts of the progress of navigating vessels by steam power, 
in the order in which the original projectors had brought them before the public, so that 
the history may easily be continued hereafter, by adding whatever, in the course of time, 
may seem useful or instructive. 
The first projectors of steam-boats appear to have confined their views entirely to towing- 
vessels for carrying ships out of or into harbours, in rivers or otherwise, in adverse winds. 
The first boat of this description on record was proposed by Mr. Jonathan Hulls (of 
Exeter), for which he took out a patent, which was signed on the 21st of December 1736. 
The specification sets out with a description of the boat and machinery, accompanied with 
a plate, representing the boat in the act of towing a ship of war, having the tow-rope 
fixed immediately under the foretop. The towing-vessel is represented with two distinct 
paddle-wheels, projecting a considerable distance beyond the stern, and suspended from 
two projecting beams. The funnel is placed nearly in the middle of the boat, and the 
engine bearing towards the stern. It does not appear, from any subsequent accounts, that 
Mr. Hulls was able to reduce his scheme to practice. In addition to the specification, he 
published in London, in 1737, a pamphlet, containing a more enlarged account of his 
scheme, which, it is believed, is now very rare. Upon the whole, although Mr. Hulls is 
entitled, so far as known, to priority in having brought before the public the first scheme 
for navigating vessels by the aid of steam, subsequent experience has certainly shewn, 
that the manner in which he proposed to work his paddles would have been altogether 
unfit for the purposes intended, even of towing vessels into or out of a harbour, unless 
when the weather was perfectly calm, and no swell in the sea. The scheme, however, 
seems in a few years to have been entirely forgotten. 
The next effort to propel vessels by machinery was taken up by Mr. Patrick Miller, of 
Dalswinton, a landed proprietor in Dumfries-shire, who had devoted much of his time to 
mechanical pursuits. About the year 1785, he began a series of experiments for applying 
paddle-wheels to vessels, with a view of towing or extricating vessels when beset with 
adverse winds, or placed in dangerous situations. But at this period, his ideas of the 
propelling power were confined to machinery worked by manual labour. 
About this time Mr. Miller engaged Mr. James Taylor, then about 27 years of age, as 
tutor to his son. Mr. Taylor was a man of very general knowledge, and passionately 
fond of mechanical pursuits. He entered warmly into Mr. Miller’s views, and under their 
joint superintendence a sort of twin vessel, of about sixty feet in length, was constructed