July 26, 2025 • 32 mins
Immerse yourself in the thrilling tales of Lord Cochrane, a renowned sea captain from the Napoleonic era, whose life was rich with high-seas adventures that later inspired numerous naval fiction series. This second volume of his biography, penned by his secretary and son, completes the unfinished Autobiography of a Seaman. Discover how Cochrane valiantly assists the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire, marks his presence in the House of Lords, regains his knighthood, and makes a striking comeback to the Royal Navy.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twenty four of the life of Thomas Lord Cochrane,
tenth Earl of dun Donald, completing the Autobiography of Seamen,
Volume two by Henry Richard Foxbourne and others. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Recording by Timothy Ferguson
eighteen thirty three to eighteen forty seven. Lord do Donald's father,
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the ninth Earl, had devoted the chief energies of his
long life to scientific pursuits, which won for him not
profit but well owned fame, and which proved of immense
benefit to his own and succeeding generations. By him, was
discovered the art of extracting tar from coal, and out
of that discovery was developed, partly by him and partly
by others, the manufacture of gas, first used for lighting
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his tar works. The important chemical process of making alkali
and crystals of soda was also introduced by him, whereby
a great impetus was given to the manufacture of glass
and to many other important branches of industry. He discovered
the present method of preparing alum or sulfate of vitriol,
and suggested its substitution for gum senegal, which has proved
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hardly less advantageous to the mechanical arts. In seventeen ninety
five he published treatise The Result of numerous and costly
Experiments on the Connection between Agriculture and Chemistry, which was
almost the parent of all the later researchers that have
issued in beneficial plans for improving the soil and invigorating
the growth of crops, and in various and important developments
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of scientific farming. The tenth Earl of Dundonald inherited his
father's mechanical and scientific genius. The lamp invented by him
in eighteen fourteen, which introduced the principle upon which all
later lamps for burning oil, naphtha and other comustibles have
been constructed, has already been referred to. Many other inventions
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and discoveries occupied his leisure during the years in which
he was allowed to follow his profession, both in British
and foreign service. Footnote. It is interesting to note that
the recent introduction among us of the Turkish bath was
due to Lord dun Donald having recovered said doctor Goss
in his Treaties Dubain Turk from two attacks of intermitting fever.
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I visited the islands of the archipelago until summoned to
Naplia by Admiral Cochrane, who was then on board the
little steamer Mercury. There, the heir of the Gulf and
the Marshi Miasma brought on another attack of fever, from
which I feared a fatal issue. Lord Cochrane had the
kindness to take me in his arms and to place
me in the current of steam, which caused me to
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perspire freely. My illness disappeared, as if by enchantment. A
similar service was rendered by Lord dun Donald to mister
David Urkitt, whose attention was thus called to the advantages
of the Turkish Bath, and who became its great advocate.
Footnote ends and the fuller leisure forced upon him. During
the years following the return from Greece was chiefly devoted
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to further exercise of his inventive faculties to the wonderful
invention known as his Secret War Plan. Illusion will presently
be made. His other most important mechanical pursuits had for
their principal object the improvement of steam engines and other
appliances for steam shipping. Almost his first reminiscence was of
a visit in which when he was seven or eight
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years old, he accompanied his father to Birmingham, there to
meet with James Watt and hear something of his memorable discovery.
Apprehending in his youth the value of that discovery, he
never wearied in his efforts to extend its usefulness. The
Rising Star, built in eighteen eighteen under his directions and
those of his brother, Major Cochrane, for service in Chile,
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was the first steam vessel across the Atlantic, and it
was an additional disappointment to him, amid all the misfortune's
incident to his efforts to give adequate assistance to the
Greeks in their war of independence, that the ill fated steamers,
which were to be his chief instruments therein failed, through
the indolence and incompetence of those to whom their construction
was assigned. It is not necessary here to detail the
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studies and experiments by which he afterwards sought to introduce
a better stay steam engine for locomotive purposes than was then,
or is even now in general use. His plan, not
a new one, though it had never before been made
available in practice, was to substitute for the ordinary reciprocating
engine a machine which should at once produce a circular motion.
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Of the many rotary engines heretofore offered to the notice
of the world, he wrote in eighteen thirty three, none
of stood the test of practical use and experience. The
cause of this uniform failure has been the great difficulty
of obtaining within the machine a base of resistance on
which the steam might act in propelling the movable piston.
He did not quite overcome this difficulty, but he succeeded
in producing what the foremost critic in this department of manufacture, describes,
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after a lapse of thirty years, unrivaled for their development
of ingenuity, as the most perfect engine of the class
that has yet been projected. In this engine, says the
same authority, an eccentric is made to revolve on an
axis in the manner of a piston, and two doors
forming part of the side of the cylinder press upon
the eccentric. The points of these doors are armed with
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swiveling brasses, which apply themselves to the eccentric and make
the point of contact tight in all positions. This revolving engine,
said Lord Cochrane, does not require any valve or slide. Consequently,
there is no waste of steam. Thereby, neither is there
any loss as in the space left at the top
and bottom of the cylinders of reciprocating engines. There is
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much less friction than arises from the sum of all
the bearings required to convert the rectilineal force of the
common engine to circular motion. There are no beams, cranked,
side rods, connecting rods, parallel motions, leaders, slide valves, or
eccentrics with their nicely adjusted joints in bearings, and thus
the revolving engine is not liable even in one tenth
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degree to the accidents and hindrances of other engines. As
its parts pursue their course in perfect circles without stop
or hindrance, it is capable of progressive acceleration until the
work performed equals the pressure of steam on the vacuum,
an advantage which the reciprocating engine does not possess. The
diminished the bulk and weight, and the absence of tremor
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add to the capacity, buoyancy, velocity, and durability of vessels
in which it is placed. The rotary engine did not
satisfy all Lord Dundonald's expectations, but it took precedence of
all others of the same sort, and was of great
service at any rate in directing attention to what he
rightly considered to be the great want in warshiping, namely,
vessels of the least possible bulk and the greatest possible strength,
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speed and fighting power. Years were spent by him in
attempting to bring it into notice. At his own cost.
He fitted out a little steamboat which navigated the Thames,
but to perfect the invention were required more funds than
he had at his command, and he sought in vain
for adequate assistance from others. In January eighteen thirty four
he wrote to Sir James Graham, then First Lord of
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the Admiralty, thanking him for his share in the restitution
of his naval rank that had occurred nearly two years before,
and urging the corporation of the government imperfecting an invention
that promised to be of so much importance to the
naval power of England. You are not obliged to me
for anything, answered Sir James on the fifteenth I only
am fortunate in being the member of the government which
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has regained for our country the benefit of your distinguished
valor and services, which, if again required in war, will
I am persuaded, be so exerted as to win the
gratitude of the nation and demonstrate the justice of the
decision to which you allude. It is impossible to overestimate
the paramount importance of steam and future naval operations, and
it is fortunate that you have directed so much of
your attention to the subject. The Board has complied with
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your request, and two engineers in whom we place reliance
will be ordered to attend you. It does not appear, however,
that the engineers did attend at any rate. Nothing was
done by the Admiraltee in aid of the invention, either
then or for many years after. Yet its ingenuity was
acknowledged by all who investigated it, and by naval authorities,
among the number. The Earl of Minto, when first Lord
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of the Admiralty, sought to introduce it into the national
ship building, but official hindrances too great even for him
to overcome, stood in his way. All he could do
was to have it referred to competent judges, and to
receive the report in its favor. I am commanded to
acquaint your lordship, wrote Sir John Barrow, the Secretary of
the Admiralty, to the Earl of Dundonald, on the twentieth
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of December eighteen thirty nine, that the opinions received of
your revolving engine are favorable to the principle, and that
it has not been stated that there are any insurmountable
obstacles to its practical execution. The insurmountable obstacles were in
the stolid resistance of subordinates to any novelty designed to
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lessen labor and promote economy. Lord Minto, when out of office,
was able to speak of the engine in more approving
terms than he could adopt in his official capacity. I
need hardly say, he wrote on the sixth of September
eighteen forty two, that the report of continued success in
your rotary engine gives me great pleasure, not only upon
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your own account, but as promising a valuable addition to
our naval power in its application to ships of war
as a high pressure engine. The complete success of your
plan has, I believe, been recognized by all who have
attended to it, and it is in this form that
I had contemplated its application in the first instance as
an auxiliary and occasional power in some ships of war
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at length, though not with all the energy that he desired.
Lord dun Donald's engine was put to the test by
the Admiralty during the Earl of Haddington's tenure of office
in that department. In May eighteen forty two, he was
invited by the new First Lord, who, in common with
all the world, was aware of the zeal And intelligence
with which he had devoted himself to the consideration a
very branch of naval science, to communicate his opinions. Thereupon,
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the first result of this invitation was a letter showing
remarkable discernment of evils than existing, and curiously anticipating some
later efforts to correct them. The slow progress, wrote Lord
dun Donald on the seventh of June, which the Naval
Service has made towards its present ameliorated state, yet far
from perfection, has not permitted any one border admiralty in
my time to stand pre eminently distinguished for decisive improvements.
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These have rather been affected by gradual changes which time occasions,
or by following the example of America or even of France,
than by encouraging efforts of native genius. This has arisen
from causes easily remedied, one of which is that the
rejection or adoption of profit improvements as depended on the
decision of several authorities, who consequently fear little individual responsibility
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and imagine themselves liable to censure only for a change
of system. Thus, my Lord, is still heavier. Responsibility has
in fact been occurred by continuing long after the most
superficial observation demanded a change to construct small ships of
the line and little frigates, which the great practical skill
and bravery of our countrymen were taxed to defend against
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the powerful eighty gun ships of France and the large
frigates of America. This timidity as to change caused many
years to elapse after the commercial use of steam vessels,
before the Naval Department possessed even a tuger boat. Hence
the mischievous economy manufactured by the purchase of worthless merchant steamers,
Hence the subsequent parsimonious project of building small steam vessels
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fitted with engines immersed beyond their bearing and deficient in
every requisite for purposes of war. I am not one
of those, my Lord, who deem it advantageous to act
on the belief that one Englishman can be two Frenchmen.
I am inclined to doubt whether a practical demonstration of
that saying might not be attended with disastrous consequences. Long
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habititude reared experienced British officers were now replaced by others
who possessed less nautical skill and a nearer on par
with those of France, in regard to whose education every
pains has been taken by its government. I do not
presume to advise that your Lordship should adopt any changes precipitately,
nor without consulting those who may be most competent to
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judge know, nor even then that the best measures should
be prematurely disclosed, so as to give intimation to other
nations of the vast increase of power which may suddenly
be rendered available. But I venture to suggest that you
may quietly prepare the means of affecting purposes which neither
the ordinary ships of war nor the present steamships in
the navy can accomplish. Permanent blockades, my Lord, are now
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quite out of the question, and so, in my opinion,
are all our ordinary naval tactics A couple of heavy
line of battleships suddenly fitted on the outbreak of war
with adequate steam power, would decide the successful result of
a general action. And I am assured that I could
show your Lordship how to fit a steamship which, in
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scouring the channel or ranging the coast, could take or
destroy every steamship belonging to France that came within view.
That offer was accepted by the Earl of Haddington, who,
being at Portsmouth in August, made personal inspection of some
experiments in which Lord Dundonnald was there engaging, And the
result of that inspection was that he promptly arranged for
the introduction the public expense of the rotary engine in
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the Firefly, a small steam vessel which, like many others,
the Government had bought and found useless by reason of
its clumsy machinery. In her with no more than the
usual delay occasioned by the co operation of official routine
with private enterprise, in which Lord Dundonald had the assistance
of Mister Bnton and Messrs Brahma, the experiment was tried
and found to answer so well in spite of the
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difficulties incident to a first attempt that it was resolved
to develop it further in a frigate to be built
throughout in accordance with his plans for the improved construction
of shipping. To these he had lately made some valuable additions.
On the nineteenth of January eighteen forty three, a patent
was granted to him for various improvements in engines and
other machinery, one of which was an apparatus for propelling vessels.
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This improved propeller, says a competent authority, consists of an
arrangement of propelling blades emerged beneath the water in the
manner now usual in screw vessels, But instead of the
blades being set at right angles with the propell shaft,
they form an angle therewith One important effect of this
arrangement is that it corrects the centrifugal action of the screw.
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For whereas in common screws, the water which is discharged
backwards assumes a conical figure, enlarging as it recedes, in
a screw formed by Lord do Donald's plan, the outline
of the moving water will be cylindrical, the centrifugal action
being counteracted by the convergent action due to the backward
inclination of the propelling blades. It is found practically that
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screws constructed upon this principle give a better result than
ordinary screws. Another invention patented by Lord do Donald at
the same time was a modification of the boilers used
for steam engines. These boilers, says the same critic, are
constructed with a double tier of furnaces, with the upright
tubes and water being contained within the tubes and the
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smoke impinging upon them on its passage to the chimney.
This species a boiler is found to be very efficient.
A hanging bridge is ina introduced to retain the heat
in the upper part of the flu in which the
tubes are erected, by inserting a short piece of tube
in the upper extremity of each tube within the boiler.
The upward circulation of the water within the tubes was
increased as the length of the lighter column of water
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was augmented, while the length of the gravitating column remained
without alteration. Footnote John Bourne a Treaties on Shipbuilding, eighteen
sixty one, page two hundred and thirty three. These boilers
extensively used in London, America and elsewhere, and now introduced
in the Admiralty. Ship building have been greatly improved by
Lord dun Donald's son, Captain the Honorable A. A. Cochrane
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c B. I believe, he said in a letter to
Lord Harrington, dated on the twenty second of May eighteen
forty three, that all our old vessels of war, save
the class of eighty gun ships and a few first
rate and large frigates, are almost worthless, whilst our steam
department is deficient in most of the properties which constitute
effective vessels. No blockades worthy of the name can now
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be maintained by fleets of safe sailing ships, nor can
accompanying steamships be kept for months and years, even in
approximate readiness, awaiting the distant night, when it may suit
the enemy to attack our blockading force, or quietly slip
out in the dark in order to assail our commerce
in other quarters. I have, my Lord, during the last
twelve years, actually dispersed, to the great inconvenience of my
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family upwards of sixteen thousand pounds to promote notical objects
which appeared to me of importance. Your Lordship knows their
nature and it is in no way difficult to ascertain
their reality. I consider that several, if not all, of
our line of battleships should have the benefit of mechanical power,
say to the extent of a hundred horses, the machinery
to be placed out of the reach of shot. The
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construction of new ships on the best lines that could
be found would prove more judicious than repairing old ones. However,
apparently cheap such repairs may be for a few powerful
and quick sailing ships are preferable to a multitude which
can neither successfully chase nor escape from an enemy. That
allusion to the best lines of ship building, and some
of Lord Dundonald's other views on naval architecture, will be
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explained by another letter written by him to Lord Haddington
three months before, on the twentieth of February. I have lately,
he said, submitted to the consideration of Sir George Cockburn,
an axiom for the uniform delineation of consecutive parabolic curves
forming a series of lines presenting the least resistance in
the submerged portion of ships and vessels, an axiom never
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before so applied in naval architecture. As is manifest from
the discrepant forms of our ships of war. I also
offered to Sir George's attention a new propeller and method
of adapting propellers to sailing ships in Her Majesty's service,
free from the disadvantages of paddle wheels, and from the
injurious consequences of lessening the buoyancy and weakening the strength
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of the after part of ships by a prolongation of
the dead wood and by cutting a large hole through
it for the insertion of the Archimedean's screw. The favorable
impression made on the mind of Sir George, and my
own deliberate conviction of the importance of these improvements and
of others, then briefly touched on led me by reason
of the lamented indisposition of that talented officer now personally
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instead of threw him to offer them to your Lordship's attention.
The French, as your Lordship is well aware, are making
great exertions to advance their steam department, especially in the Mediterranean,
where calms are frequent and their coal is abundant, doubtless
in the hope of thereby preventing the future blockade of Toulon,
and keeping open their intercourse with Algiers, which would be
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equivalent to possessing the dominion of the Mediterranean Sea, where
a British blockading fleet of sailing ships must, under such
circumstances themselves be protected. In saying this, my Lord, I
beg to be understood as by no means deprecating the
capabilities of our commonships of war, whilst they possess the
power of motion, but as holding them to be quite
unfit for blockades and exposed to great peril where carms
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are of frequent currents and long duration. Indeed, it may
be worthy of your Lordship's serious consideration whether, in another
point of view, it might not be judicious to place
steam engines in some, at least of our line of battleships,
in order to divert the attention of foreign nations from
the exclusive employment of mechanical propelling power to the purposes
of naval war, whereby British officers and seamen, deprived of
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the means of displaying their superior skill, become reduced to
a par with the train bands of continental states. I
have prepared a model in bronze of a steam frigate
possessing peculiar properties founded on the before mentioned axiom, which
I do not hesitate to submit to your lordship would say,
vast sums wasted in the construction of inferior ships and
vessels by enabling the Admiralty on unerring data to stereotype.
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If I may use the expression every curve in every
rate or class of ships, and so impose on constructors
the undeviating task of adhering to the lines and models
scientifically determined on by their lordships. Footnote. The following statement
of Lord Duncanini's axiom accompanied the model which was submitted
to the Admiralty. It is universally admitted that a sharp
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bow and clear run contribute to the speed of vessels.
But what the consecutive lines ought to be in order
to constitute a perfect bow, or what those to form
the run? No builder has yet exemplified by uniformity of
practice or theoretically defined ship delineators profess the art as
a mystery, and arbitrary forms are assumed as the result
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of science. These lines ought to be by an axiom
founded on a law imposed by infinite wisdom for the
perfect guidance of inanimate matter Projectiles thrown obliquely take their
flight in convex parabolic curves, wherein resistance is overcome by
a minimum of force, and elastic surfaces obey the converse
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of that law in opposing certain external influences. It is
a property of conic sections that a straight line centered
in the apex and cause to circumscribe the surface of
the cone will apply itself continued less lead to all
consecutive parabolic curves. Hence, curves similar to the flight of
projectiles and to those formed by the flexion of elastic surfaces,
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may be described on a large scale simply by causing
a straight line or beam to revolve as on the
axis of a cone in contact with a parabolic or
elliptical section. Thus, a consecutive series of convex or elliptical
curves may be substituted in shipbuilding for hollow fantastical lines.
The benefits from which application are increased velocity, capacity, strength, buoyancy,
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facility is steering, ease in hard seas, and exemption from
breaking or hogging. Diagrams and explanations thereof accompanied this concise
statement of the principle. Footnote ends great interest attended the
development of Lord Dundonald's inventions. I hardly need assure you,
wrote Lord Minto on the fourth of October, of the
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very great satisfaction I derived from the continued and increasing
success of your rotary engine, and I shall now look
with no little impatience for further evidence of its merits
in the new steam frigate to which it is to
be applied. I am glad also that you have turned
your attention to the construction of steamers of war. I
have never been satisfied with the properties of these vessels,
much as their construction has undoubtedly been improved of late years.
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It is certainly a difficult subject, because some of the
qualities essential to a vessel under sail can only be
obtained by some deviation from the form calculator to give
the greatest speed under steam. And I consider fair sailing powers,
so as under all circumstances to keep company with the
fleet as not less important than speed and power as
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a steamer. The best commodation of these different qualities, or
that which will, upon the whole produce the most serviceable ship,
is yet to be sought. I think also the sufficient
consideration has not yet been given to the correction of
that very grievous defect, the great uneasiness and excessive ruling
of all these vessels from the law opposition of the
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weights they carry. There is another object in connection with
your engine, which I had constantly in view. I mean
its adaptation in the high pressure form to worships of wore.
In general. It was my intention, had I remained in office,
to have fitted a frigate with one of your high
pressure engines. Not very high, however, with a view if
the experiment answered to the introduction of an occasional steam
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power in all ships of the line. I believe you
and I may probably differ as to the amount of
steam power it might be advisable to give such ships,
And that you would wish to steam the Vanguard or
the Queen at the rate of ten miles an hour.
My wishes are much more humble, and I should be
perfectly satisfied with an amount of power sufficient to give
steerage under way in all circumstances, to carry the ship
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in or out of action, and to afford her some
assistance in clearing off a leash shore, something about equivalent
to five knots, an amount of power that might probably
be obtained, together with some fuel for occasional use without
encroaching too much upon the stowage of the ship. I
shall be extremely glad if you can induce Lord Haddington
to direct his attention to this object end quote. Through
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the latter part of eighteen forty three. In the whole
of eighteen forty four, Lord dun Donald was chiefly occupied
with the construction of the Janus, the steam frigate which
was being built and fitted upon his plans. She was
shaped in accordance with his lines, and in her were
introduced both his revolving engines and his improved boilers. I
have just returned from Chatham, he wrote to a friend
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on the sixth of April eighteen forty four, where everything
regarding the Janus is going very well indeed, and I
have further good news to tell you. The Admiralty are
so pleased with my parabolic lines for shipbuilding that they
have ordered a drawing to be made immediately of a
frigate of the first class, in order to have one constructed.
Hopeful that at last his long cherished ideas would bring
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benefit both to himself and to the nation, he had
in these months much to encourage him. All is going
on as well as I could wish, or even as
I could accomplish, were destiny at my command, he wrote
on the thirty first of May. The Portsmouth engines now
meet the approbation of all the authorities of the yard,
and the Admiralty are so satisfied that they have given
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me the building of a steamship to put them in
in lieu of placing them in the old Firefly. Nothing,
he said in a letter written a week or two later,
can exceed the perfection of the work which the Brahmas
have put into the Janus's engines. The experimental engine at Portsmouth,
he wrote on the third of July, continues to perform admirably,
beating all others in the yard in point of vacuum,
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which you know is the test of power. The engines
will commence being put together in ten or fourteen days,
we read another letter dated on the tenth of July.
After that we shall make rapid progress. The Janus is
now completing that is being copied, and having the part
of a deck laid down which was left off for
the purpose of getting the boilers on board. My patent
boilers will be tried by Authority of the Admiralty about
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the twentieth, and I hope for a favorable result. The
trial postponed till the first of August, was satisfactory. We
have tried the boiler of the Janus, he wrote on
that day, and the result is most triumphant, having with
slack firing ten and a half pounds of water evaporated
by each pound of coal. I have just returned from Portsmouth,
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he had written five days before, where I had the
pleasure to find my engine exceeding even all that it
had done before the vacuum, with all the work on
being twenty eight and a half two inches above that
of any other engine in the dock yard. Mister Taplin,
the Chief Engineer, is quite delighted with it. Sir George
Coburn and Sir John Barrow, Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty,
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saw my engine yesterday. He wrote on the twenty fourth
of October, concerning the machine being built by the Brahmas
for the Janus, and so did Lord Brahm, all of
whom were well pleased with my explanation of its principles
and the appearance of the workmanship. It is now being
pulled to pieces in order to its being sent to
Chatham and set up on board the Janus, whose boilers,
by my request, are again to be officially tested as
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to their evaporative power, and that too by the Woolich authority,
whose boilers have been beaten one third by the evaporation
of mine. This request must show the Admiralty my confidence
in the correctness of the former trial, for there is
no doubt the Woolwich people would condemn it if they could.
The second and crucial trial took place on the ninth
of November, and the results succeeded alike Lord dun Donald's
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expectations and those of the official judges, to whom failure
would have been most pleasant. All matters as regards my engines,
he wrote on the twentieth of November, are going on well.
I hope soon to hear something satisfactory from the Admiralty
on the subject of the boilers, respecting which they have
until now pursued the most profound silence, withholding the triumphant
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result which has surpassed the product of the far famed
Cornish boilers in evaporative pallor those extracts from Lord dun
Donald's letters to the friend with whom he corresponded most freely,
will suffice to show in what temper he watched the
progress of his inventions during eighteen forty four. At the
close of the year, he hoped that his labors to
bring them into general use were now nearly at an end.
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But unless he was disappointed the Woolich authorities, who had
at the time expressed their approval of the boilers, sent
in an adverse report to the Admiralty and Lord do
Donald had to wait several months before he could disprove
the statements made against them, and opposition of the same
sort the common experience of nearly every inventor encountered him
at every turn, and had again and again to be overcome.
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His Portsmouth engine continued to work well, but in September
eighteen forty five he learned that a malicious trick had
been resorted to to prevent it working better. On a
recent examination of the pumps in the well, wrote mister Taplin,
the engineer, to our utter astonishment, we found in the
middle suction pipe and elm plug driven in so tight
that we were obliged to bore and cut it out.
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The plugs stopped that suction pipe effectually, and from its appearance,
must have been there from the time the pumps were
first put in motion. As proof of this, we never
had such a supply of water as at present, and
that is only in a st draation of the obstacles,
accidental or designed, that occurred to him by them, the
Janus was delayed for a whole year. She was to
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have been completed in eighteen forty four, but this was
not done until the end of eighteen forty five. I
have just returned, Lord dun Dunald was able to write
on the twenty fourth of December from a nine days
strip in the Janus, the result of which has been successful,
both in regard to the properties of the engines and
those of the lines on which she has been constructed.
Nothing can exceed the beauty of her passage through the
water without even a ripple, far less the wave which
(29:30):
ordinary steamboats occasion. That success, however, was followed by a
long series of disasters. The weight of the Janus had
been miscalculated, and though she could proceed admirably in smooth water,
she was found to lie so low that there was
constant danger of her being wrecked in rough seas, and
bad weather. Other faults incident to the bringing together for
the first time of so much dwe workmanship were also discovered.
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She had to be returned to dock, and fresh hindrances
of every sort occurred during the two following years, each
hindrance being attended by tedious correspondents or controversies with ready
functionaries jealous of a stranger's interference and only eager to
bring discredit upon his work. Much discredit did result. Loud
complaints were made concerning the waste of public money resulting
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from Lord Cochrane's experiments, and on him, of course, nearly
all the blame was thrown. All this added to his
previous difficulties in securing for his boiler and engine, and
he noticed at all was very grievous to him. Every
complaint and every entreaty from him was met by a
new excuse and a new reason for delay. Ten days
are always added, he said in one letter, and ten
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days yet are said to be required. The days became weeks,
and the weeks became months, and still the janus was incomplete.
She was unfinished when Lord dun Donald left England for
more than two years in order to fulfill the duties
assigned to him as Commander in chief of the North
American and West Indian Squadron, and his absence caused a
final abandonment of the works. The tedious process of her construction, however,
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to which only sufficient reference has here been made to
serve as illustration of one phase of Lord dun Donald's life,
was attended by many good results. To himself, she bought
only trouble and expense. But the obstacles thrown in her
way and in his did not dedure private adventurers from
acting upon some of the principles developed in a board
of attempts at her completion by public functionaries. Lord Dundonald's inventions,
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his revolving engine, his screw propeller, his boiler, and his
lines of shipbuilding have all proved useful in themselves, and
have been a yet greater use in their influence upon
the improved mechanism of our own generation. To him must
be attributed no slight share in the revolution that has
been effected in the materials for naval warfare of the
superiority of steamers to warships. He was one of the
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first advocates. His own rotary engine was never extensively adopted,
and was superseded by other engines, which, lacking the great
merit of direct action upon the paddles that it was
his object to attain, had other and greater merits of
their own, But in their adoption his great object was realised,
seeing that the object was not his own aggrandizement, but
the development of the naval strength of England. End of
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Chapter twenty four. Recording by Timothy ferguson, Gold Coast, Australia,
Chapter twenty four of the life of Thomas Lord Cochrane,
tenth Earl of dun Donald, completing the Autobiography of Seamen,
Volume two by Henry Richard Foxbourne and others. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Recording by Timothy Ferguson
eighteen thirty three to eighteen forty seven. Lord do Donald's father,
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the ninth Earl, had devoted the chief energies of his
long life to scientific pursuits, which won for him not
profit but well owned fame, and which proved of immense
benefit to his own and succeeding generations. By him, was
discovered the art of extracting tar from coal, and out
of that discovery was developed, partly by him and partly
by others, the manufacture of gas, first used for lighting
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his tar works. The important chemical process of making alkali
and crystals of soda was also introduced by him, whereby
a great impetus was given to the manufacture of glass
and to many other important branches of industry. He discovered
the present method of preparing alum or sulfate of vitriol,
and suggested its substitution for gum senegal, which has proved
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hardly less advantageous to the mechanical arts. In seventeen ninety
five he published treatise The Result of numerous and costly
Experiments on the Connection between Agriculture and Chemistry, which was
almost the parent of all the later researchers that have
issued in beneficial plans for improving the soil and invigorating
the growth of crops, and in various and important developments
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of scientific farming. The tenth Earl of Dundonald inherited his
father's mechanical and scientific genius. The lamp invented by him
in eighteen fourteen, which introduced the principle upon which all
later lamps for burning oil, naphtha and other comustibles have
been constructed, has already been referred to. Many other inventions
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and discoveries occupied his leisure during the years in which
he was allowed to follow his profession, both in British
and foreign service. Footnote. It is interesting to note that
the recent introduction among us of the Turkish bath was
due to Lord dun Donald having recovered said doctor Goss
in his Treaties Dubain Turk from two attacks of intermitting fever.
(02:10):
I visited the islands of the archipelago until summoned to
Naplia by Admiral Cochrane, who was then on board the
little steamer Mercury. There, the heir of the Gulf and
the Marshi Miasma brought on another attack of fever, from
which I feared a fatal issue. Lord Cochrane had the
kindness to take me in his arms and to place
me in the current of steam, which caused me to
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perspire freely. My illness disappeared, as if by enchantment. A
similar service was rendered by Lord dun Donald to mister
David Urkitt, whose attention was thus called to the advantages
of the Turkish Bath, and who became its great advocate.
Footnote ends and the fuller leisure forced upon him. During
the years following the return from Greece was chiefly devoted
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to further exercise of his inventive faculties to the wonderful
invention known as his Secret War Plan. Illusion will presently
be made. His other most important mechanical pursuits had for
their principal object the improvement of steam engines and other
appliances for steam shipping. Almost his first reminiscence was of
a visit in which when he was seven or eight
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years old, he accompanied his father to Birmingham, there to
meet with James Watt and hear something of his memorable discovery.
Apprehending in his youth the value of that discovery, he
never wearied in his efforts to extend its usefulness. The
Rising Star, built in eighteen eighteen under his directions and
those of his brother, Major Cochrane, for service in Chile,
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was the first steam vessel across the Atlantic, and it
was an additional disappointment to him, amid all the misfortune's
incident to his efforts to give adequate assistance to the
Greeks in their war of independence, that the ill fated steamers,
which were to be his chief instruments therein failed, through
the indolence and incompetence of those to whom their construction
was assigned. It is not necessary here to detail the
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studies and experiments by which he afterwards sought to introduce
a better stay steam engine for locomotive purposes than was then,
or is even now in general use. His plan, not
a new one, though it had never before been made
available in practice, was to substitute for the ordinary reciprocating
engine a machine which should at once produce a circular motion.
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Of the many rotary engines heretofore offered to the notice
of the world, he wrote in eighteen thirty three, none
of stood the test of practical use and experience. The
cause of this uniform failure has been the great difficulty
of obtaining within the machine a base of resistance on
which the steam might act in propelling the movable piston.
He did not quite overcome this difficulty, but he succeeded
in producing what the foremost critic in this department of manufacture, describes,
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after a lapse of thirty years, unrivaled for their development
of ingenuity, as the most perfect engine of the class
that has yet been projected. In this engine, says the
same authority, an eccentric is made to revolve on an
axis in the manner of a piston, and two doors
forming part of the side of the cylinder press upon
the eccentric. The points of these doors are armed with
(05:00):
swiveling brasses, which apply themselves to the eccentric and make
the point of contact tight in all positions. This revolving engine,
said Lord Cochrane, does not require any valve or slide. Consequently,
there is no waste of steam. Thereby, neither is there
any loss as in the space left at the top
and bottom of the cylinders of reciprocating engines. There is
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much less friction than arises from the sum of all
the bearings required to convert the rectilineal force of the
common engine to circular motion. There are no beams, cranked,
side rods, connecting rods, parallel motions, leaders, slide valves, or
eccentrics with their nicely adjusted joints in bearings, and thus
the revolving engine is not liable even in one tenth
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degree to the accidents and hindrances of other engines. As
its parts pursue their course in perfect circles without stop
or hindrance, it is capable of progressive acceleration until the
work performed equals the pressure of steam on the vacuum,
an advantage which the reciprocating engine does not possess. The
diminished the bulk and weight, and the absence of tremor
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add to the capacity, buoyancy, velocity, and durability of vessels
in which it is placed. The rotary engine did not
satisfy all Lord Dundonald's expectations, but it took precedence of
all others of the same sort, and was of great
service at any rate in directing attention to what he
rightly considered to be the great want in warshiping, namely,
vessels of the least possible bulk and the greatest possible strength,
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speed and fighting power. Years were spent by him in
attempting to bring it into notice. At his own cost.
He fitted out a little steamboat which navigated the Thames,
but to perfect the invention were required more funds than
he had at his command, and he sought in vain
for adequate assistance from others. In January eighteen thirty four
he wrote to Sir James Graham, then First Lord of
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the Admiralty, thanking him for his share in the restitution
of his naval rank that had occurred nearly two years before,
and urging the corporation of the government imperfecting an invention
that promised to be of so much importance to the
naval power of England. You are not obliged to me
for anything, answered Sir James on the fifteenth I only
am fortunate in being the member of the government which
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has regained for our country the benefit of your distinguished
valor and services, which, if again required in war, will
I am persuaded, be so exerted as to win the
gratitude of the nation and demonstrate the justice of the
decision to which you allude. It is impossible to overestimate
the paramount importance of steam and future naval operations, and
it is fortunate that you have directed so much of
your attention to the subject. The Board has complied with
(07:29):
your request, and two engineers in whom we place reliance
will be ordered to attend you. It does not appear, however,
that the engineers did attend at any rate. Nothing was
done by the Admiraltee in aid of the invention, either
then or for many years after. Yet its ingenuity was
acknowledged by all who investigated it, and by naval authorities,
among the number. The Earl of Minto, when first Lord
(07:52):
of the Admiralty, sought to introduce it into the national
ship building, but official hindrances too great even for him
to overcome, stood in his way. All he could do
was to have it referred to competent judges, and to
receive the report in its favor. I am commanded to
acquaint your lordship, wrote Sir John Barrow, the Secretary of
the Admiralty, to the Earl of Dundonald, on the twentieth
(08:12):
of December eighteen thirty nine, that the opinions received of
your revolving engine are favorable to the principle, and that
it has not been stated that there are any insurmountable
obstacles to its practical execution. The insurmountable obstacles were in
the stolid resistance of subordinates to any novelty designed to
(08:33):
lessen labor and promote economy. Lord Minto, when out of office,
was able to speak of the engine in more approving
terms than he could adopt in his official capacity. I
need hardly say, he wrote on the sixth of September
eighteen forty two, that the report of continued success in
your rotary engine gives me great pleasure, not only upon
(08:53):
your own account, but as promising a valuable addition to
our naval power in its application to ships of war
as a high pressure engine. The complete success of your
plan has, I believe, been recognized by all who have
attended to it, and it is in this form that
I had contemplated its application in the first instance as
an auxiliary and occasional power in some ships of war
(09:17):
at length, though not with all the energy that he desired.
Lord dun Donald's engine was put to the test by
the Admiralty during the Earl of Haddington's tenure of office
in that department. In May eighteen forty two, he was
invited by the new First Lord, who, in common with
all the world, was aware of the zeal And intelligence
with which he had devoted himself to the consideration a
very branch of naval science, to communicate his opinions. Thereupon,
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the first result of this invitation was a letter showing
remarkable discernment of evils than existing, and curiously anticipating some
later efforts to correct them. The slow progress, wrote Lord
dun Donald on the seventh of June, which the Naval
Service has made towards its present ameliorated state, yet far
from perfection, has not permitted any one border admiralty in
my time to stand pre eminently distinguished for decisive improvements.
(10:05):
These have rather been affected by gradual changes which time occasions,
or by following the example of America or even of France,
than by encouraging efforts of native genius. This has arisen
from causes easily remedied, one of which is that the
rejection or adoption of profit improvements as depended on the
decision of several authorities, who consequently fear little individual responsibility
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and imagine themselves liable to censure only for a change
of system. Thus, my Lord, is still heavier. Responsibility has
in fact been occurred by continuing long after the most
superficial observation demanded a change to construct small ships of
the line and little frigates, which the great practical skill
and bravery of our countrymen were taxed to defend against
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the powerful eighty gun ships of France and the large
frigates of America. This timidity as to change caused many
years to elapse after the commercial use of steam vessels,
before the Naval Department possessed even a tuger boat. Hence
the mischievous economy manufactured by the purchase of worthless merchant steamers,
Hence the subsequent parsimonious project of building small steam vessels
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fitted with engines immersed beyond their bearing and deficient in
every requisite for purposes of war. I am not one
of those, my Lord, who deem it advantageous to act
on the belief that one Englishman can be two Frenchmen.
I am inclined to doubt whether a practical demonstration of
that saying might not be attended with disastrous consequences. Long
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habititude reared experienced British officers were now replaced by others
who possessed less nautical skill and a nearer on par
with those of France, in regard to whose education every
pains has been taken by its government. I do not
presume to advise that your Lordship should adopt any changes precipitately,
nor without consulting those who may be most competent to
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judge know, nor even then that the best measures should
be prematurely disclosed, so as to give intimation to other
nations of the vast increase of power which may suddenly
be rendered available. But I venture to suggest that you
may quietly prepare the means of affecting purposes which neither
the ordinary ships of war nor the present steamships in
the navy can accomplish. Permanent blockades, my Lord, are now
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quite out of the question, and so, in my opinion,
are all our ordinary naval tactics A couple of heavy
line of battleships suddenly fitted on the outbreak of war
with adequate steam power, would decide the successful result of
a general action. And I am assured that I could
show your Lordship how to fit a steamship which, in
(12:40):
scouring the channel or ranging the coast, could take or
destroy every steamship belonging to France that came within view.
That offer was accepted by the Earl of Haddington, who,
being at Portsmouth in August, made personal inspection of some
experiments in which Lord Dundonnald was there engaging, And the
result of that inspection was that he promptly arranged for
the introduction the public expense of the rotary engine in
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the Firefly, a small steam vessel which, like many others,
the Government had bought and found useless by reason of
its clumsy machinery. In her with no more than the
usual delay occasioned by the co operation of official routine
with private enterprise, in which Lord Dundonald had the assistance
of Mister Bnton and Messrs Brahma, the experiment was tried
and found to answer so well in spite of the
(13:23):
difficulties incident to a first attempt that it was resolved
to develop it further in a frigate to be built
throughout in accordance with his plans for the improved construction
of shipping. To these he had lately made some valuable additions.
On the nineteenth of January eighteen forty three, a patent
was granted to him for various improvements in engines and
other machinery, one of which was an apparatus for propelling vessels.
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This improved propeller, says a competent authority, consists of an
arrangement of propelling blades emerged beneath the water in the
manner now usual in screw vessels, But instead of the
blades being set at right angles with the propell shaft,
they form an angle therewith One important effect of this
arrangement is that it corrects the centrifugal action of the screw.
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For whereas in common screws, the water which is discharged
backwards assumes a conical figure, enlarging as it recedes, in
a screw formed by Lord do Donald's plan, the outline
of the moving water will be cylindrical, the centrifugal action
being counteracted by the convergent action due to the backward
inclination of the propelling blades. It is found practically that
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screws constructed upon this principle give a better result than
ordinary screws. Another invention patented by Lord do Donald at
the same time was a modification of the boilers used
for steam engines. These boilers, says the same critic, are
constructed with a double tier of furnaces, with the upright
tubes and water being contained within the tubes and the
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smoke impinging upon them on its passage to the chimney.
This species a boiler is found to be very efficient.
A hanging bridge is ina introduced to retain the heat
in the upper part of the flu in which the
tubes are erected, by inserting a short piece of tube
in the upper extremity of each tube within the boiler.
The upward circulation of the water within the tubes was
increased as the length of the lighter column of water
(15:14):
was augmented, while the length of the gravitating column remained
without alteration. Footnote John Bourne a Treaties on Shipbuilding, eighteen
sixty one, page two hundred and thirty three. These boilers
extensively used in London, America and elsewhere, and now introduced
in the Admiralty. Ship building have been greatly improved by
Lord dun Donald's son, Captain the Honorable A. A. Cochrane
(15:36):
c B. I believe, he said in a letter to
Lord Harrington, dated on the twenty second of May eighteen
forty three, that all our old vessels of war, save
the class of eighty gun ships and a few first
rate and large frigates, are almost worthless, whilst our steam
department is deficient in most of the properties which constitute
effective vessels. No blockades worthy of the name can now
(15:58):
be maintained by fleets of safe sailing ships, nor can
accompanying steamships be kept for months and years, even in
approximate readiness, awaiting the distant night, when it may suit
the enemy to attack our blockading force, or quietly slip
out in the dark in order to assail our commerce
in other quarters. I have, my Lord, during the last
twelve years, actually dispersed, to the great inconvenience of my
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family upwards of sixteen thousand pounds to promote notical objects
which appeared to me of importance. Your Lordship knows their
nature and it is in no way difficult to ascertain
their reality. I consider that several, if not all, of
our line of battleships should have the benefit of mechanical power,
say to the extent of a hundred horses, the machinery
to be placed out of the reach of shot. The
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construction of new ships on the best lines that could
be found would prove more judicious than repairing old ones. However,
apparently cheap such repairs may be for a few powerful
and quick sailing ships are preferable to a multitude which
can neither successfully chase nor escape from an enemy. That
allusion to the best lines of ship building, and some
of Lord Dundonald's other views on naval architecture, will be
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explained by another letter written by him to Lord Haddington
three months before, on the twentieth of February. I have lately,
he said, submitted to the consideration of Sir George Cockburn,
an axiom for the uniform delineation of consecutive parabolic curves
forming a series of lines presenting the least resistance in
the submerged portion of ships and vessels, an axiom never
(17:29):
before so applied in naval architecture. As is manifest from
the discrepant forms of our ships of war. I also
offered to Sir George's attention a new propeller and method
of adapting propellers to sailing ships in Her Majesty's service,
free from the disadvantages of paddle wheels, and from the
injurious consequences of lessening the buoyancy and weakening the strength
(17:50):
of the after part of ships by a prolongation of
the dead wood and by cutting a large hole through
it for the insertion of the Archimedean's screw. The favorable
impression made on the mind of Sir George, and my
own deliberate conviction of the importance of these improvements and
of others, then briefly touched on led me by reason
of the lamented indisposition of that talented officer now personally
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instead of threw him to offer them to your Lordship's attention.
The French, as your Lordship is well aware, are making
great exertions to advance their steam department, especially in the Mediterranean,
where calms are frequent and their coal is abundant, doubtless
in the hope of thereby preventing the future blockade of Toulon,
and keeping open their intercourse with Algiers, which would be
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equivalent to possessing the dominion of the Mediterranean Sea, where
a British blockading fleet of sailing ships must, under such
circumstances themselves be protected. In saying this, my Lord, I
beg to be understood as by no means deprecating the
capabilities of our commonships of war, whilst they possess the
power of motion, but as holding them to be quite
unfit for blockades and exposed to great peril where carms
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are of frequent currents and long duration. Indeed, it may
be worthy of your Lordship's serious consideration whether, in another
point of view, it might not be judicious to place
steam engines in some, at least of our line of battleships,
in order to divert the attention of foreign nations from
the exclusive employment of mechanical propelling power to the purposes
of naval war, whereby British officers and seamen, deprived of
(19:19):
the means of displaying their superior skill, become reduced to
a par with the train bands of continental states. I
have prepared a model in bronze of a steam frigate
possessing peculiar properties founded on the before mentioned axiom, which
I do not hesitate to submit to your lordship would say,
vast sums wasted in the construction of inferior ships and
vessels by enabling the Admiralty on unerring data to stereotype.
(19:43):
If I may use the expression every curve in every
rate or class of ships, and so impose on constructors
the undeviating task of adhering to the lines and models
scientifically determined on by their lordships. Footnote. The following statement
of Lord Duncanini's axiom accompanied the model which was submitted
to the Admiralty. It is universally admitted that a sharp
(20:05):
bow and clear run contribute to the speed of vessels.
But what the consecutive lines ought to be in order
to constitute a perfect bow, or what those to form
the run? No builder has yet exemplified by uniformity of
practice or theoretically defined ship delineators profess the art as
a mystery, and arbitrary forms are assumed as the result
(20:27):
of science. These lines ought to be by an axiom
founded on a law imposed by infinite wisdom for the
perfect guidance of inanimate matter Projectiles thrown obliquely take their
flight in convex parabolic curves, wherein resistance is overcome by
a minimum of force, and elastic surfaces obey the converse
(20:48):
of that law in opposing certain external influences. It is
a property of conic sections that a straight line centered
in the apex and cause to circumscribe the surface of
the cone will apply itself continued less lead to all
consecutive parabolic curves. Hence, curves similar to the flight of
projectiles and to those formed by the flexion of elastic surfaces,
(21:09):
may be described on a large scale simply by causing
a straight line or beam to revolve as on the
axis of a cone in contact with a parabolic or
elliptical section. Thus, a consecutive series of convex or elliptical
curves may be substituted in shipbuilding for hollow fantastical lines.
The benefits from which application are increased velocity, capacity, strength, buoyancy,
(21:34):
facility is steering, ease in hard seas, and exemption from
breaking or hogging. Diagrams and explanations thereof accompanied this concise
statement of the principle. Footnote ends great interest attended the
development of Lord Dundonald's inventions. I hardly need assure you,
wrote Lord Minto on the fourth of October, of the
(21:54):
very great satisfaction I derived from the continued and increasing
success of your rotary engine, and I shall now look
with no little impatience for further evidence of its merits
in the new steam frigate to which it is to
be applied. I am glad also that you have turned
your attention to the construction of steamers of war. I
have never been satisfied with the properties of these vessels,
much as their construction has undoubtedly been improved of late years.
(22:18):
It is certainly a difficult subject, because some of the
qualities essential to a vessel under sail can only be
obtained by some deviation from the form calculator to give
the greatest speed under steam. And I consider fair sailing powers,
so as under all circumstances to keep company with the
fleet as not less important than speed and power as
(22:38):
a steamer. The best commodation of these different qualities, or
that which will, upon the whole produce the most serviceable ship,
is yet to be sought. I think also the sufficient
consideration has not yet been given to the correction of
that very grievous defect, the great uneasiness and excessive ruling
of all these vessels from the law opposition of the
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weights they carry. There is another object in connection with
your engine, which I had constantly in view. I mean
its adaptation in the high pressure form to worships of wore.
In general. It was my intention, had I remained in office,
to have fitted a frigate with one of your high
pressure engines. Not very high, however, with a view if
the experiment answered to the introduction of an occasional steam
(23:21):
power in all ships of the line. I believe you
and I may probably differ as to the amount of
steam power it might be advisable to give such ships,
And that you would wish to steam the Vanguard or
the Queen at the rate of ten miles an hour.
My wishes are much more humble, and I should be
perfectly satisfied with an amount of power sufficient to give
steerage under way in all circumstances, to carry the ship
(23:43):
in or out of action, and to afford her some
assistance in clearing off a leash shore, something about equivalent
to five knots, an amount of power that might probably
be obtained, together with some fuel for occasional use without
encroaching too much upon the stowage of the ship. I
shall be extremely glad if you can induce Lord Haddington
to direct his attention to this object end quote. Through
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the latter part of eighteen forty three. In the whole
of eighteen forty four, Lord dun Donald was chiefly occupied
with the construction of the Janus, the steam frigate which
was being built and fitted upon his plans. She was
shaped in accordance with his lines, and in her were
introduced both his revolving engines and his improved boilers. I
have just returned from Chatham, he wrote to a friend
(24:26):
on the sixth of April eighteen forty four, where everything
regarding the Janus is going very well indeed, and I
have further good news to tell you. The Admiralty are
so pleased with my parabolic lines for shipbuilding that they
have ordered a drawing to be made immediately of a
frigate of the first class, in order to have one constructed.
Hopeful that at last his long cherished ideas would bring
(24:47):
benefit both to himself and to the nation, he had
in these months much to encourage him. All is going
on as well as I could wish, or even as
I could accomplish, were destiny at my command, he wrote
on the thirty first of May. The Portsmouth engines now
meet the approbation of all the authorities of the yard,
and the Admiralty are so satisfied that they have given
(25:08):
me the building of a steamship to put them in
in lieu of placing them in the old Firefly. Nothing,
he said in a letter written a week or two later,
can exceed the perfection of the work which the Brahmas
have put into the Janus's engines. The experimental engine at Portsmouth,
he wrote on the third of July, continues to perform admirably,
beating all others in the yard in point of vacuum,
(25:29):
which you know is the test of power. The engines
will commence being put together in ten or fourteen days,
we read another letter dated on the tenth of July.
After that we shall make rapid progress. The Janus is
now completing that is being copied, and having the part
of a deck laid down which was left off for
the purpose of getting the boilers on board. My patent
boilers will be tried by Authority of the Admiralty about
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the twentieth, and I hope for a favorable result. The
trial postponed till the first of August, was satisfactory. We
have tried the boiler of the Janus, he wrote on
that day, and the result is most triumphant, having with
slack firing ten and a half pounds of water evaporated
by each pound of coal. I have just returned from Portsmouth,
(26:12):
he had written five days before, where I had the
pleasure to find my engine exceeding even all that it
had done before the vacuum, with all the work on
being twenty eight and a half two inches above that
of any other engine in the dock yard. Mister Taplin,
the Chief Engineer, is quite delighted with it. Sir George
Coburn and Sir John Barrow, Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty,
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saw my engine yesterday. He wrote on the twenty fourth
of October, concerning the machine being built by the Brahmas
for the Janus, and so did Lord Brahm, all of
whom were well pleased with my explanation of its principles
and the appearance of the workmanship. It is now being
pulled to pieces in order to its being sent to
Chatham and set up on board the Janus, whose boilers,
by my request, are again to be officially tested as
(26:56):
to their evaporative power, and that too by the Woolich authority,
whose boilers have been beaten one third by the evaporation
of mine. This request must show the Admiralty my confidence
in the correctness of the former trial, for there is
no doubt the Woolwich people would condemn it if they could.
The second and crucial trial took place on the ninth
of November, and the results succeeded alike Lord dun Donald's
(27:18):
expectations and those of the official judges, to whom failure
would have been most pleasant. All matters as regards my engines,
he wrote on the twentieth of November, are going on well.
I hope soon to hear something satisfactory from the Admiralty
on the subject of the boilers, respecting which they have
until now pursued the most profound silence, withholding the triumphant
(27:39):
result which has surpassed the product of the far famed
Cornish boilers in evaporative pallor those extracts from Lord dun
Donald's letters to the friend with whom he corresponded most freely,
will suffice to show in what temper he watched the
progress of his inventions during eighteen forty four. At the
close of the year, he hoped that his labors to
bring them into general use were now nearly at an end.
(28:01):
But unless he was disappointed the Woolich authorities, who had
at the time expressed their approval of the boilers, sent
in an adverse report to the Admiralty and Lord do
Donald had to wait several months before he could disprove
the statements made against them, and opposition of the same
sort the common experience of nearly every inventor encountered him
at every turn, and had again and again to be overcome.
(28:25):
His Portsmouth engine continued to work well, but in September
eighteen forty five he learned that a malicious trick had
been resorted to to prevent it working better. On a
recent examination of the pumps in the well, wrote mister Taplin,
the engineer, to our utter astonishment, we found in the
middle suction pipe and elm plug driven in so tight
that we were obliged to bore and cut it out.
(28:46):
The plugs stopped that suction pipe effectually, and from its appearance,
must have been there from the time the pumps were
first put in motion. As proof of this, we never
had such a supply of water as at present, and
that is only in a st draation of the obstacles,
accidental or designed, that occurred to him by them, the
Janus was delayed for a whole year. She was to
(29:07):
have been completed in eighteen forty four, but this was
not done until the end of eighteen forty five. I
have just returned, Lord dun Dunald was able to write
on the twenty fourth of December from a nine days
strip in the Janus, the result of which has been successful,
both in regard to the properties of the engines and
those of the lines on which she has been constructed.
Nothing can exceed the beauty of her passage through the
water without even a ripple, far less the wave which
(29:30):
ordinary steamboats occasion. That success, however, was followed by a
long series of disasters. The weight of the Janus had
been miscalculated, and though she could proceed admirably in smooth water,
she was found to lie so low that there was
constant danger of her being wrecked in rough seas, and
bad weather. Other faults incident to the bringing together for
the first time of so much dwe workmanship were also discovered.
(29:51):
She had to be returned to dock, and fresh hindrances
of every sort occurred during the two following years, each
hindrance being attended by tedious correspondents or controversies with ready
functionaries jealous of a stranger's interference and only eager to
bring discredit upon his work. Much discredit did result. Loud
complaints were made concerning the waste of public money resulting
(30:11):
from Lord Cochrane's experiments, and on him, of course, nearly
all the blame was thrown. All this added to his
previous difficulties in securing for his boiler and engine, and
he noticed at all was very grievous to him. Every
complaint and every entreaty from him was met by a
new excuse and a new reason for delay. Ten days
are always added, he said in one letter, and ten
(30:32):
days yet are said to be required. The days became weeks,
and the weeks became months, and still the janus was incomplete.
She was unfinished when Lord dun Donald left England for
more than two years in order to fulfill the duties
assigned to him as Commander in chief of the North
American and West Indian Squadron, and his absence caused a
final abandonment of the works. The tedious process of her construction, however,
(30:53):
to which only sufficient reference has here been made to
serve as illustration of one phase of Lord dun Donald's life,
was attended by many good results. To himself, she bought
only trouble and expense. But the obstacles thrown in her
way and in his did not dedure private adventurers from
acting upon some of the principles developed in a board
of attempts at her completion by public functionaries. Lord Dundonald's inventions,
(31:16):
his revolving engine, his screw propeller, his boiler, and his
lines of shipbuilding have all proved useful in themselves, and
have been a yet greater use in their influence upon
the improved mechanism of our own generation. To him must
be attributed no slight share in the revolution that has
been effected in the materials for naval warfare of the
superiority of steamers to warships. He was one of the
(31:37):
first advocates. His own rotary engine was never extensively adopted,
and was superseded by other engines, which, lacking the great
merit of direct action upon the paddles that it was
his object to attain, had other and greater merits of
their own, But in their adoption his great object was realised,
seeing that the object was not his own aggrandizement, but
the development of the naval strength of England. End of
(31:59):
Chapter twenty four. Recording by Timothy ferguson, Gold Coast, Australia,
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