Moore's Steam Car

Sir Walter Scott is known to have been interested in steam powered rail transportation.   About a month before Scott was born, there was an invention of a steam powered carriage, which took a test run on July 19^th, 1771.  The carriage sported 15’ wheels.   The inventor was Francis Moore, who is basically unknown after this point in history.  From James Burnley’s “The Romance of Modern Industry”:

‘…But wheels themselves, apart from any application of steam, have a history ; and, in the multitude of their present variety, they have a decidedly independent mission in mechanical life. Wheeled conveyances, however, underwent very little development from the period of the ancient chariot to the era of stage coaches. For thousands of years they remained the same in their chief essentials—mere boxes on wheels. It was not until 1555 that the first coach was made in England, but by the middle of the eighteenth century wheels were traversing the country in all directions. This was the stage-coach era, and stage coaches continued to be improved from year to year, until it seemed that the world had really reached its most rapid limit of transport. Just over a century ago large wheeled vehicles were brought out in London, and were referred to in announcements in the papers. One of them was: "On Saturday evening Mr. Moore's new-constructed coach, which is very large and roomy, and is drawn by one horse, carried six persons and driver with amazing ease from Cheapside to the top of Highgate Hill. It came back at the rate of ten miles an hour, passing coaches-and-four and all other carriages it came near on the road." One description of the vehicle was: "Mr. Moore has hung the body, which is like that of a common coach reversed, between two large wheels, nine feet and a half in diameter, and draws it with a horse in shafts. The passengers sit sideways within, and the driver is placed on the top of the coach." George III. is said to have spoken in praise of this remarkable concern. Mr. Moore seems to have studied wheels, for it appears that he made many experiments as to the carrying powers of horses under the varied condition of two or four-wheeled carts. On the 19th of July, 1771, he tested the capacity of a pair of horses, which drew upon a two-wheeled cart twenty-six sacks of coal from Mr. Paiba's wharf in Thames Street to Mr. Moore's house in Cheapside, and repeated this four times in succession. Twice as many horses, he maintained, would have been required to do the same with a cart of ordinary construction. But what sort of a vehicle was Mr. Moore's "cart"? It certainly would be a grotesque sight in the present day to see such a machine ambling along the thoroughfare towering high above the quadruped supposed to be "drawing" it. "Mr. Moore's new invented coal carriage, the wheels of which are fifteen, feet high, passed through the streets attended by a great concourse of people. Two horses abreast drew two chaldrons and two sacks of coals with more ease and expedition than the common carts do one chaldron with three horses at length." Here, again, "the. coal-carriage was tried on Friday evening with thirty-one sacks, making two chaldrons and a half, drawn by two horses only to the foot of Holborn Hill, when a third was put to it to help them up the hill. This they performed with as much ease as one chaldron is commonly done by three horses." With this last performance Mr. Moore seems to have retired, as we can glean nothing more of his experiments, or of the development of his extraordinary notions…’

Prince Rupert's Return to England

‘Up and comes the flageolet master, and brings me two new great Ivory pipes which cost me 32s., and so to play, and he being done, and Balty’s wife taking her leave of me, she going back to Lee to-day, I to Westminster and there did receive 15,000l orders out of the Exchequer in part of a bigger sum upon the eleven months tax for Tangier, part of which I presently delivered to Sir H. Cholmly, who was there, and thence with Mr. Gawden to Auditor Woods and Beales to examine some precedents in his business of the Victualling on his behalf, and so home, and in my way by coach down Marke Lane, mightily pleased and smitten to see, as I thought, in passing, the pretty woman, the line-maker’s wife that lived in Fenchurch Streete, and I had great mind to have gone back to have seen, but yet would correct my nature and would not. So to dinner with my wife, and then to sing, and so to the office, where busy all the afternoon late, and to Sir W. Batten’s and to Sir R. Ford’s, we all to consider about our great prize at Hull, being troubled at our being likely to be troubled with Prince Rupert, by reason of Hogg’s consorting himself with two privateers of the Prince’s, and so we study how to ease or secure ourselves…’

The text above is from Pepys’ Diary, entry dated July 19, 1667.  Samuel Pepys was not friendly with Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who served on the Tangier Committed with Pepys.  Rupert was related to the Stuarts, and returned to England from German military service with the Restoration of Charles II.  Sir Walter Scott thought of Rupert in terms of his battles with Montrose.  The following passage comes from Scott’s “A Legend of Montrose”:

‘The celebrated Sir Henry Vane, one of the commissioners who negotiated the alliance betwixt England and Scotland, saw the influence which this bait had upon the spirits of those with whom he dealt; and although himself a violent Independent, he contrived at once to gratify and to elude the eager desires of the Presbyterians, by qualifying the obligation to reform the Church of England, as a change to be executed "according to the word of God, and the best reformed churches." Deceived by their own eagerness, themselves entertaining no doubts on the JUS DIVINUM of their own ecclesiastical establishments, and not holding it possible such doubts could be adopted by others, the Convention of Estates and the Kirk of Scotland conceived, that such expressions necessarily inferred the establishment of Presbytery; nor were they undeceived, until, when their help was no longer needful, the sectaries gave them to understand, that the phrase might be as well applied to Independency, or any other mode of worship, which those who were at the head of affairs at the time might consider as agreeable "to the word of God, and the practice of the reformed churches." Neither were the outwitted Scottish less astonished to find, that the designs of the English sectaries struck against the monarchial constitution of Britain, it having been their intention to reduce the power of the King, but by no means to abrogate the office. They fared, however, in this respect, like rash physicians, who commence by over-physicking a patient, until he is reduced to a state of weakness, from which cordials are afterwards unable to recover him.
But these events were still in the womb of futurity. As yet the Scottish Parliament held their engagement with England consistent with justice, prudence, and piety, and their military undertaking seemed to succeed to their very wish. The junction of the Scottish army with those of Fairfax and Manchester, enabled the Parliamentary forces to besiege York, and to fight the desperate action of Long-Marston Moor, in which Prince Rupert and the Marquis of Newcastle were defeated. The Scottish auxiliaries, indeed, had less of the glory of this victory than their countrymen could desire. David Leslie, with their cavalry, fought bravely, and to them, as well as to Cromwell's brigade of Independents, the honour of the day belonged; but the old Earl of Leven, the covenanting general, was driven out of the field by the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert, and was thirty miles distant, in full flight towards Scotland, when he was overtaken by the news that his party had gained a complete victory. ..’

The Battle of Halidon Hill

In 1822, Walter Scott published "Halidon Hill: a dramatic sketch from Scottish History".  Scott included some history along with his verse.  The Battle of Halidon Hill took place on July 19, 1333, and was part of the Second War of Scottish Independence.  Scottish Sir Archibald Douglas and his forces were routed by forces of the Edward III of England as they tried to relieve Berwick-upon-Tweed from English siege.  Scott begins his version of the story as follows:

'It may be proper to observe, that the scene of action has, in the following pages, been transferred from Homildon to Halidon Hill. For this there was an obvious reason, for who would again venture to introduce upon the scene the celebrated Hotspur, who commanded the English at the former battle ? There are, however, several coincidences which may reconcile even the severer antiquary to the substitution of Halidon Hill for Homildon. A Scottish army was defeated by the English on both occasions, and under nearly the same circumstances of address on the part of the victors, and mismanagement on that of the vanquished, for the English long-bow decided the day in both cases. In both cases, also, a Gordon was left on the field of battle; and at Halidon, as at Homildon, the Scots were commanded by an illfated representative of the great house of Douglas. He of Homildon was surnamed Tine-man, i. e. Lose-man, from his repeated defeats and miscarriages, and, with all the personal valour of his race, seems to have enjoyed so small a portion of their sagacity, as to be unable to learn military experience from reiterated calamity. I am far, however, from intimating, that the traits of imbecility and envy, attributed to the Regent in the following sketch, are to be historically ascribed either to the elder Douglas of Halidon Hill, or to him called Tine-man ; who seems to have enjoyed the respect of his countrymen, notwithstanding that, like the celebrated Anne de Montmorency, he was either defeated, or wounded, or made prisoner in every battle which he fought. The Regent of the sketch is a character purely imaginary.


The tradition of the Swinton family, which still survives in a lineal descent, and to which the author has the honour to be related, avers, that the Swinton who fell at Homildon in the manner narrated in the preceding extract, had slain Gordon's father; which seems sufficient ground for adopting that circumstance into the following Dramatic Sketch, though it is rendered improbable by other authorities.

If any reader will take the trouble of looking at Froissart, Fordun, or other historians of the period, he will find, that the character of the Lord of Swinton for strength, courage, and conduct, is by no means exaggerated...'