pose of forming a bridge at that place. The unhappy result of General Burgoyne’s expedition for the subjugation of the Colonies, is too well known; and it is almost unnecessary to remark, that the floating bridges, like the army destined to pass over them, were but too soon in the power of the enemy[1].
It is but fair to suppose that such services as these would be followed by correspondent rewards; and we accordingly find the subject of this memoir promoted, first to the rank of Commander, and then to that of Post-Captain; the latter event occurred Aug. 15, 1783.
It might naturally have been expected, that the interval of public tranquillity that ensued after the contest, which ended in the complete emancipation of our trans-atlantic colonies, would have proved some bar, if not to the expansion, at least to the display of Captain Schanck’s ingenuity and nautical abilities; this, however, was by no means the case. He invented, or might rather be said to have improved, a former invention of his own, relative to the construction of vessels, peculiarly adapted for navigating in shallow water. These were fitted with sliding keels, worked by mechanism[2].
- ↑ See p. 210.
- ↑ While in America, our officer became known to Earl Percy, afterwards Duke of Northumberland; and it was during a conversation with that nobleman, that the idea of this new construction appears to have been first elicited. His Lordship, who discovered a taste for naval architecture, amidst the devastations of a civil war, and the various operations of a land army, happened one day to observe, “that if cutters were built flatter, so as to go on the surface, and not draw much water, they would sail much faster, and might still be enabled to carry as much sail, and keep up to the wind, by having their keels descend to a greater depth; and that the flat side of the keel, when presented to the water, would even make them able to spread more canvas, and hold the water better, than on a construction whereby they present only the circular surface of the body to the wave.” Mr. Schanck immediately coincided in this opinion; and added, “that if this deep keel was made moveable, and to be screwed upwards into a trunk, or well, formed within the vessel, so that, on necessity, they might draw little water, all these advantages might be obtained.” Accordingly, in 1774, he built a boat for Lord Percy, then at Boston; and she was found to answer all his expectations. It should here be observed, that the balza of South America preceded the sliding keel invented by the subject of this memoir. The balza is a raft, composed of eight or ten large pieces of
