There was more future promise about Sauvage’s work on the screw-propeller than about his physionotype, but he himself did not reap the benefit accruing from it.  It became public property.  The English built a trial ship, the Rattler, and the Americans another, the Princeton.  But the Napoleon was earlier than these, and besides was more successful than either of them.  She was originally ordered as a mail steam-packet, from a private shipyard, by the Ministry of Finance, which was much bolder as to introducing innovations than the Ministry of Marine, and her construction was confided to two eminent men—­M.  Normand, of Havre, for her hull, and an Englishman, Mr. Barnes, for her engines and propeller.  Each of these gentlemen was equally successful in his first attempt.

During the summer of 1843 I was in command of a flotilla, formed for the purpose of making experiments to compare ships of the old-fashioned type with this little vessel, which we tested in every imaginable way.  At every change in the condition of the sea, M. Normand, Mr. Barnes, and I myself, who were all three of us escorting the Napoleon on board the Pluton, used to rush on deck to watch her behaviour.  M. Normand would give us a lecture on her lines and her displacement wave, or the degree of her rolling or her pitching.  Mr. Barnes, a great big Englishman, said never a word, but pulled a slide-rule out of his pocket and mumbled algebraic formulae.  The ship was commanded in first-rate style by a very efficient naval lieutenant, M. de Montaignac, who since that time has acted as Minister for Marine Affairs.

As nobody had ever seen a screw steamer before, we aroused general astonishment wherever we went.  In the course of our cruise we entered the Thames, and ascended the Medway from Sheerness to Chatham.  It was in the morning, there was a slight fog.  The authorities were informed of our approach, and were preparing to receive us, only delaying assembling for that purpose till they had been warned the ship was close by, either by her being caught sight of, or by the sound of her paddle-wheels striking the water.  But the Napoleon, running swiftly up through the fog, making no noise whatever with her screw, took them all by surprise.  When the dockyard authorities hurried up they saw her stop, and then, thanks to her screw, she turned almost in her own length, and brought up alongside the jetty—­a novel proceeding over which the commodore, an old salt, was still gasping when I went ashore.

During this visit to the Thames the little flotilla went up to Woolwich, where we were welcomed by the English authorities with that frank cordiality with which they have almost always received me.  We were shown both the arsenal and the dockyard.  In the dockyard basin a steam corvette with paddle-wheels was lying, which had a new arrangement of which I had heard a great deal.  The sponsons formed great rafts which could be lowered into the water by an ingenious mechanical contrivance, and which, in case of its being necessary to land troops, would carry a large number at a time, and even save the crew in a case of disaster.  This, indeed, did occur in the Crimea and elsewhere, after our ships had all been equipped with the invention.