vanity and imposture.'[1] To the last the subject exercised a fascination over him, and allusions constantly recur in his letters to his hope of some day successfully solving the problem.
The model of a double-bottomed vessel built by Sir William Petty was formerly preserved at Gresham College, but it is now lost. This, however, was not the model of the actual vessel which perished in the Irish Channel.[2] A controversy on the subject having subsequently arisen, Sir William wrote to Sir Robert Southwell as follows:
'I say (1) that the model at Gresham College is not the model of the real ship which was built; that having two decks, whereas the model hath but one; (2) that the History of the Royal Society hath already given an account of the fate of the ship; (3) if we say any more we must tell how the ship which required so many men had but 17 when she perished; the rest having been taken out of her by the "Dragon" frigate; and might add how little encouragement that design had from the most navarchale Prince, with many other things. But you have taught me more discretion, than to follow truth too near. But I have a treatise ready to vindicate the design, and the necessity of attempting it, which will make it rise again when I am dead.'[3]
Events, however, more serious than the failure of his plans for the construction of the sluice-boat now came to disturb him, for early in February 1685, Charles II. died, and a new king ascended the throne of the three kingdoms, on whose
- ↑ To Southwell, Dec. 18, 1682.
- ↑ The collections at Gresham College were removed to the British Museum when the original College was demolished in 1768, but the model of the 'Experiment' is not now in existence, unless it can be identified with one of the ancient models in the Naval Museum at Greenwich.
- ↑ Petty to Southwell, Feb. 1681. Amongst the Petty MSS. there are two volumes of papers relating to the different trials of the 'Experiment,' and other questions of ship-building, with diagrams. The Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library contain 'An Essay on a general scheme of Naval Philosophy,' marked as 'lent to Pepys' in 1682; and 'An Account of models of ships, produced and explained by Sir William Petty;' also 'A Notice of the Double-bottomed ship.' In the Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach, vol. ii., ch. vii., an account is given of an attempt by John, Marquis of Lansdowne, in 1806, to renew the experiment of his ancestor, which, however, nearly ended as disastrously as that of 1684.
