He tried his boat on the River Avon, at
Evesham, but it did not succeed, and the engine was taken on
shore again. A local poet commemorated his failure in the
following lines, which were remembered long after his steamboat
experiment had been forgotten:--
"Jonathan Hull,
With his paper skull,
Tried hard to make a machine
That should go against wind and tide;
But he, like an ass,
Couldn't bring it to pass,
So at last was ashamed to be seen."
Nothing of importance was done in the direction of a steam-engine
able to drive paddles, until the invention by James Watt, in
1769, of his double-acting engine--the first step by which steam
was rendered capable of being successfully used to impel a
vessel. But Watt was indifferent to taking up the subject of
steam navigation, as well as of steam locomotion. He refused
many invitations to make steam-engines for the propulsion of
ships, preferring to confine himself to his "regular established
trade and manufacture," that of making condensing steam-engines,
which had become of great importance towards the close of his
life.
Two records exist of paddle-wheel steamboats having been early
tried in France--one by the Comte d'Auxiron and M. Perrier in
1774, the other by the Comte de Jouffroy in 1783--but the notices
of their experiments are very vague, and rest on somewhat
doubtful authority.
The idea, however, had been born, and was not allowed to die.
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