[2] In February 1800, the English inventor and engineer Edward Shorter proposed using a propeller attached to a rod angled down temporarily deployed from the deck above the waterline of a vessel and thus requiring no water seal.

He tested it on Doncaster in Gibraltar and at Malta and the device was able to achieve a speed of 1.5 mph (2.4 km/h).

Lloyd's List showed Doncaster, Smith, master, sailing from Quebec on 24 September 1808.

Ship arrival and departure data suggest that he had been master of Doncaster since at least 1807, and that she had sailed to the West Indies and Quebec.

Ice crushed her and she sank off St. Paul Island, Nova Scotia She was on a voyage from Newcastle upon Tyne to Miramichi.