his arrival at Knoxville, his journal ends abruptly; but from other
sources we learn that he sailed from New York on his return to England
in January, 1798. His interesting record, however, remained unpublished
until after his death in 1844.

Not only to Francis Baily but to scores of other travelers, even those
of unfriendly eyes, do modern readers owe a debt of gratitude. These men
have preserved a multitude of pictures and a wealth of data which would
otherwise have been lost. The men of America in those days were writing
the story of their deeds not on parchment or paper but on the virgin
soil of the wilderness. But though the stage driver, the tavern keeper,
and the burly riverman left no description of the life of their highways
and their commerce, these visitors from other lands have bequeathed
to us their thousands of pages full of the enterprising life of these
pioneer days in the history of American commerce.

CHAPTER VII. The Birth Of The Steamboat

The crowds who welcomed the successive stages in the development of
American transportation were much alike in essentials--they were all
optimistic, self-congratulatory, irrepressible in their enthusiasm, and
undaunted in their outlook. Dickens, perhaps, did not miss the truth
widely when, in speaking of stage driving, he said that the cry of "Go
Ahead!" in America and of "All Right!" in England were typical of the
civilizations of the two countries. Right or wrong, "Go Ahead!"
has always been the underlying passion of all men interested in the
development of commerce and transportation in these United States.

During the era of river improvement already described, men of
imagination were fascinated with the idea of propelling boats by
mechanical means. Even when Washington fared westward in 1784, he met
at Bath, Virginia, one of these early experimenters, James Rumsey, who
haled him forthwith to a neighboring meadow to watch a secret trial of
a boat moved by means of machinery which worked setting-poles similar to
the ironshod poles used by the rivermen to propel their boats upstream.
"The model," wrote Washington, "and its operation upon the water, which
had been made to run pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I
before thought next to, if not quite impracticable, but that it might
be to the greatest possible utility in inland navigation." Later he
mentions the "discovery" as one of those "circumstances which have
combined to render the present ep