Note 34 — 1848.

Sergeant James Anderson was one of those who was thus favoured. On obtaining his discharge, with a pension of 1s. 10d. a day, in August, 1845, he received an appointment in Worsley-yard, belonging to the estate of Lord Ellesmere, as superintendent and storekeeper of the yard, at a salary of 120l. a-year, with a residence. Since then, such has been his scrupulous character for honesty and careful supervision, that a very handsome addition has been made to his income, and the utmost confidence is reposed in him.

Another was colour-sergeant John Ross, a very ingenious mechanic, who after his discharge, in April, 1848, was appointed engineer at Runcorn, to attend to a small steam fleet in the canal, under the Bridgewater Trust. He invented the drawbridge at the entrance of Fort Albert, Bermuda, the largest of its class in any military fortification, and which can be easily worked by two men, either in throwing it across the ditch, or pulling it in. Many years of his life had been spent in perfecting a new system of locomotion for ships. His great idea was the construction of a vessel which should ride above the control of the waves, resting upon an arrangement of large cylinders, to serve, like the piers of a bridge, as the natural supports of the ship, and within which should be placed his revolving paddle-wheels, to be moved by steam appliances. By a very ingenious contrivance he provided that the sea, which should come in contact with the paddles, should not only be deprived of its resistance, but made to assist in the propulsion of the vessel. The speed he calculated to obtain by his system was almost incredible. Personal trials of an imperfect model, in the waters at Bermuda, convinced him of the practicability of his bold scheme. After quitting Runcorn, ambitious of higher employment, he emigrated to Canada, where he is pursuing the study and development of his novel notions of shipbuilding and locomotion. He received a gratuity and medal for his services in the corps, and might have been promoted to the rank of sergeant-major, but, restless and speculative, he preferred to try what his mechanical genius would yield him in civil life.