t withstanding its undignified name
and humble employment, had the honour of being the first steam-vessel
belonging to the Royal Navy. She was a vessel of about 212 tons, and 80
horse-power, and did good service in her day. Both Admiralty and naval
officers held steamers,--"smoke-jacks," or "tea-kettles," they were
generally called--in great contempt, supposing that their only possible
use would be as despatch-boats, or as tugs. It was reasoned that
paddles would be so readily disabled in action, that it would be useless
to fit them to fighting ships. However, after a year or so, several
steam-sloops and frigates were built which took some part in the Syrian
and Chinese wars, as also in operations in the Parana. In none of these
wars, however, were they subjected to any severe test of their liability
to damage under fire.

All possible difficulties on this latter score, were solved in 1834,
when Mr Francis Pettit Smith invented the screw propeller, which works
wholly under water. He succeeded in propelling a small model by this
means on his father's horsepond at Hendon, in Middlesex, and in 1836 he
took out a patent for his invention. The idea was old; in 1775,
Bushnell, an American, had utilised it to propel a submarine boat, but
up till then, practical difficulties in working had not been solved.

Smith was neither a naval man nor an engineer, and for some time,
neither Admiralty, engineers, nor naval men believed that the invention
would work with sufficient power to drive a ship against the wind.
Fortunately others thought differently, and in 1836, a vessel of 10
tons, with an engine of 6 horse-power, was built and successfully tried,
first on the Paddington Canal, and then on the Thames. Finally, it put
out to sea, and demonstrated by its behaviour in severe weather, that
the screw was equally successful in rough water.

This turned the scales in favour of the screw. A larger boat was built,
which showed her powers to the Lords of the Admiralty, by towing their
barge to Blackwall and back, at the average rate of 10 miles an hour.
Still they were not convinced, and it was not for a couple of years or
so that they took the matter up, after a successful voyage made by the
_Archimedes_, the first sea-going screw steamer. They then built a
small craft called the _Bee_, fitted with both paddles and screw, to try
which was the better means of propulsion. The screw had the best of it,
and after the further exp