Note 138 — Chapter IX · PROPELLING MACHINERY

Miller is said to have approached the Admiralty twice upon the subject, and certainly he was keenly interested in naval affairs. A generous tribute has been paid him by a friend whose name is honoured in our naval annals: “I was unwearied,” says John Clerk of Eldin in the preface of his Essay on Naval Tactics, published in 1804, “in my attention to the many valuable experiments of the ingenious and liberal-minded Mr. Patrick Miller of Dalswinton; to whom, whether in shipbuilding or in constructing artillery, both musketry and great guns, his country is more indebted than has hitherto been properly acknowledged.”