The local Dutch newspaper Zierikzeesche Courant dated 1 April 1834 published some details originally published in French newspapers according to which the famous smuggle Johnston now in British government service the Egyptian pasha his invention of a submarine offered. With such a submarine (he called it a diving boat) were men able to go under water in every desired direction. Six men could be during 6 hours submerged having enough air to breath. A second invention of Johnston was an infernal engine which the submarine fitted unnoticed to the keel of a vessel and which exploded after some time. In such a way was it possible according to the same Johnston to destroy with 14 days a complete fleet of the enemy.Apparently this submarine was never build.
With such a submarine was planned during the life of the exiled former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to transport him secretly from the island St. Helena. The boat was to stay during the day submerged and would at night come to the surface when Napoleon using ropes descended the rocks.(1)
Note
1. The website http://www.submarine-history.com/NOVAone.htm confirms this story. According to this site was there a possibility that the Englishman Thomas Johnstone was hired to built a 110 foot long submarine to rescue Napoleon which but died before this plan was realised. In the memoirs of Chateubriand seemed this story to be confirmed. The Penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion if Useful Knowledge, 1839, volume 8 p. 88 referred to a 100 foot long submarine ‘which was intended to float on a level with the surface, or at least to sink very little below it’ to rescue Napoleon and to bring him to the United States. Nearly finished was the submarine seized by the British government whey they became aware of the building and proposed use. According to this source was Johnston alter involved in experiments with destroying the French fleet at Cadiz. The Cortes however refrained this idea. Most of the sources confirmed that Johnstone was familiar with the well known inventor Fulton. The website http://www.smuggling.co.uk/gazetteer_s_12.html supplies more personal details, born at Lymington 1772 and died at the age of 67, which had been a privateer, prisoner of war, smuggler, navy pilot and the commander of the British revenue cutter HMS Fox.
