Page 552 - INDIANNAVYV1

520 HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
laid down to sleep twice." He arrived in safety at Bombay
after surmounting many difficulties and undergoing great hard-
ships ; and Lord Glenelg spoke in eulogistic terms of his
" talents, public spirit and energy," Soon after his arrival,
Commander Hawkins was reappointed to the command of his
old ship, the 'Clive.
The second event of importance in the year 1830, already
alluded to, Commander Hawkins' trial being the other, was the
inauguration of steam communication between Bombay and
Suez, for which an officer of the Service is entitled to the chief
credit. In 1829, there was launched at Bombay, for the
Marine, a small steam vessel of 411 tons, called the 'Hugh
Lindsay,' which had a long and serviceable life of thirty years.
The 'Hugh Lindsay' was not by any means the first steamer
that had appeared in the East, but she was unquestionably the
first to demonstrate the feasibility of the overland route, so far
as the most important link — the sea passage between Lidia and
Suez—was concerned, and for this her captain, the late Com-
mander J. H. Wilson, is entitled to high honour. The first
proposal we have been able to ferret out, for' the establishment
of overland steam communication, was in the year 1822, and
we read the following in a letter which appears in the "Asiatic
Journal" of May in that year -"A Captain Johneton has sug-
:
gested a plan for opening an intercourse with India by means
of steam vessels, and the details he has furnished respecting it
are so specious, and all the obstacles in the way of its success
are so admirably disposed of, that it is astonishing the pro-
jector has not been deluged with contributions or subscriptions
already, and that a steamer is not unloading in the port of
Suez." What would the writer, who wrote this half in irony,
say of the steamers now at the port of Suez and the other ports
throughout the East ! Lieutenant Johnston, R.N., was com-
niissioned to proceed to Calcutta, with the object of forming a
company for working one or more vessels on the Suez line, but
the scheme fell through. A proposal was then made to run
steamers by the old route of the Cape of Good Hope, and funds
were obtained by subscription in order to carry out an experi-
ment.
In our account of the Burmese war, mention has frequently
been made of the 'Diana,' which—under charge of her engi-
neer, Mr. Anderson—was of such essential service throughout
the operations on the Irrawaddy. In January and Eebruary,
1827, other steamers, the ' Irrawaddy' and ' Ganges,' were
launched at Kyd's dockyard, at the same slips that gave birth
to the 'Diana;' and a year or two later, a third, called the
'Hooghly,' was added to the Company's service. But these
were all river steamers, and the first sea-going vessel propelled
by steam, was the ' Enterprise,' built in England, by means of