faltered as he said,- Excuse me, sir, but memory was busy as I contemplated this the first pecuniary reward I have ever received for all my exertions in adapting steam to navigation. I would gladly com. memorate the occasion over a bottle of wine with you, but really I am too poor even for that just now, yet I trust we may meet again when this will not be so.' They did meet again four years afterwards: Fulton had not forgotten the incident, for few men ever forget the first fee received for their labour, and at the second meeting the wine was not spared."

We have given this remarkable fact as we find it, in order to show how this clever man, like many others, had to struggle against opposition, though we think the custom of celebrating success by winedrinking had better have been let alone.

In 1812 a steamer called the Comet was started by Henry Bell on the river Clyde. In 1814 four more were in motion in Scotland, but not one in England or Ireland. "On the 28th November, of the same year, after Napoleon had been about seven months in Elba, the London Times was first printed by steam; and in the following year steamboats appeared for the first time on the Thames and the Mersey.*

*And the Caledonian on the Trent from Hull to Gainsbro. The writer rode twenty miles on her, up the river, a month before the battle of Waterloo.

Thus just before the battle of Waterloo had sealed the doom of the greatest captain of the age,' and secured the blessings of peace to the exhausted nations of Europe, two of the most important applications of steam-power were made: one to increase and to cheapen to an extent hitherto unknown the productions of the printing-press, and the other to diffuse these, with a speed and a certainty beyond even marvellous tales, to every region under

the sun.

From that time the progress of steam navigation has been exceedingly rapid. In 1820, England had seventeen, Scotland fourteen, and Ireland three steamers; twenty years afterwards, the numbers were respectively 987, 244, and 79. The regularity, speed, and safety with which the voyages of these vessels were made soon pointed them out as the best conveyance both for passengers and the mails. In 1821 they were employed on the latter service between Dublin and Holyhead, and between Calais and Dover; and now, with few exceptions, all the Channel and ocean work of the post-office is done by steamers; and all the passenger, and much of the goods' traffic between the different ports of Great Britain and Ireland have been, within the last quarter of a century, transferred to them.

After the steamboat had thus passed through the various stages of infancy and childhood-had tried its strength on English rivers, in the Irish Sea, and in the British Channel-men began to ask, was it not strong enough and old enough to do more? Could it not cross an ocean as well as a channel?take letters, and men, and merchandise to America, India, and Australia, as well as to Ireland and France? In this question were involved considerations of the highest importance to all the world, but particularly to this country. No other country has such extensive foreign possessions as Great Britain, or carries on such an extensive foreign trade. With the exception of the United States, all the colonies planted by the British remain part of the empire; while Spain and Portugal have lost nearly all those rich territories— extending over the fairest portion of the great American continent-that at one time acknowledged the sway of the Houses of Bourbon and Braganza. The foreign possessions of France are insignificant; and of the other nations of Europe the Dutch alone possess a territory abroad greater than they have at home. The only empire at all approaching the British in extent is the Russian, but its extent is the only point of comparison. Russia consists of one great unbroken mass, stretching through the bleakest

and most barren regions of Europe, Asia, and America; she has no port of any consequence on the ocean; thousands of miles of her sea-coast are seldom or never navigable; and the population of her immense territory is only about 60,000,000. It is, therefore, not a mere figure of speech to say, that the British Empire is the greatest in the world; for it embraces a territory of nearly 6,000,000 of square miles, and a population of more than 150,000,000or about one-eighth of the land, and one-seventh of the inhabitants, of the whole globe. Nor is it less true to say, that on these great possessions the sun never sets; for they are scattered all over the world-in tropical Africa and Asia, in the temperate zones of both hemispheres and among the islands of every ocean; and whether ocupying a rock, an island, a continental province, or a continent itself, as in Australia, their geographical position fits them well for upholding the power of the empire. The foreign trade of Great Britain is equal to all the foreign trade of Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and Norway, and a third greater than that of the United States of America. The high position of Britain among the nations, the necessities of her foreign trade, and the wants of her colonies and dependencies, apart from all other considerations, rendered

it fitting and natural that she should lead the way in maritime enterprise, and teach the nations how to navigate the ocean by steam. Nor has she failed in this high task; for within thirteen or fourteen years since the question was first proposed, she has established lines of gigantic steam vessels that are now traversing with regularity and safety every ocean; steaming altogether more than a million and a quarter miles ever year, and distributing letters and newspapers all over the world at a cost to the country of about £650,000 per annum."

But about the first attempt to cross the 3000 miles of the Atlantic ocean, with all its storms, by steam. Sailing vessels usually came from America in twenty days, and went back in thirty-six. In 1819, an American vessel came over by wind and steam in twenty-six days a week longer than usual-so this would not do. Well: in 1836 it was talked about again. In that year 60,000 passengers went over to America, and above twelve million pounds worth of goods were sent, and money, cotton, corn, and dying woods, were brought back. This trade was immense. What could be done? Our most scientific and wise men said steam power would never effect the voyage -it would require nearly 1000 tons of coal-there was no resting place on the ocean, and its storms