The honour which in America attached to Fulton as the man who first
brought the steamboat into use, and to the River Hudson as being the
scene of the experiment, in our own country fell (in a somewhat less
degree, being subsequent), to Henry Bell, and the River Clyde.
Brought up as a millwright, Bell, from want of funds to start in
business, was obliged for many years to gain his living as a common
carpenter in Glasgow, where he was noted among the trade as being very
fond of "schemes," and suspected on that account by narrow-minded folk
of being not very reliable in the lower branches of his craft. Scheme
after scheme issued from his fertile mind; but he was rash and hasty in
working them out, and few proved of much worth. Steam navigation being
one of the vexed problems of the time, had every fascination for his
peculiar genius; and he seems to have been brooding over it as the last
century was closing, and the present opening upon the world. When Fulton
visited Symington's invention, Bell appears to have accompanied him, and
to have afterwards corresponded with him on the subject. "This," he
says, "led me to think of the absurdity of writing my opinions to other
countries, and not putting it in practice myself in my own country; and
from these considerations I was roused to set on foot a steamboat, for
which I made a number of different models before I was satisfied."
Having removed to the little village of Helensburgh, on the banks of the
Clyde, and there established a hotel and bath-house, which his wife
managed, he endeavoured to work the passage-boats by which visitors were
brought to the place, by means of paddle-wheels worked by the hand,
instead of oars; but the plan did not succeed very well, for the same
reason that led to Mr. Miller's abandonment of it--the inefficiency of
manual power, which could not be applied with sufficiently sustained and
continuous force. He therefore gave it up, and turned his attention to
the employment of steam power for the same purpose. Of course, he was
laughed at for his pains; and Henry Bell's project for having steamers
on the Clyde became a standing joke among the frequenters of the
watering-place. Even after the permanent success of Fulton's scheme was
known, people would not moderate their incredulity; but Bell's faith,
which had never wavered, was now confirmed, and he set about the work
with redoubled energy.
In 1811, Bell, having procured the necessary funds, had a steam-boat
built of twenty-five tons and four horse power. He named it the _Comet_,
because a comet had just then appeared in the north-west of Scotland.
The _Comet_ began to run regularly between Glasgow and Helensburgh in
January 1812, and continued to ply successfully during the summer of
that year. At first, however, she brought rather loss than gain to her
projector. People were shy of trusting themselves on board, and parties
interested in the stage-coaches and sailing vessels, spread all sorts of
absurd reports about her. It was not till she had gone for some time
without accident, that tourists began to think they might as well save
their money and their time by patronizing the new mode of conveyance. In
the second year Bell took the _Comet_ off the Clyde, and sent her on a
tour round the open coasts of the three kingdoms. Before long the safety
and utility of steam navigation was admitted on all hands, and numerous
rival enterprises were on foot. In 1820 the _Comet_ was lost between
Glasgow and Fort William; and in the following year another of Bell's
vessels was burnt to the water-edge--two misfortunes that carried L3000
out of his pocket. His rivals, with abundant capital, soon drove him out
of the field, and Bell sank into poverty and neglect. A small annuity
from the Clyde trustees, and a subscription among his friends, to keep
him from starving, were all the rewards he ever received for his
enterprise and perseverance. He died in 1830 in the sixty-fourth year of
his age.