70 THE INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL POLICIES ON SHIPS' DESIGN. 



country settled itself to internal development and to repairing the ravages of the 

 war. No one suggested that the Navy was unprogressive in keeping only the old 

 monitors ready for use. Congress and the Navy Department remained under the 

 influence of officers who had served in the Civil War and whose thought and re- 

 flection were limited to that war. Accordingly, when the Spanish war broke out, 

 although it opened new policies and new theaters of action to the country, the effect 

 of these was not understood, and that very summer of the war Congress author- 

 ized the last monitors obsolete before they were commenced. 



But fortunately the country already had started on the proper plan of design- 

 ing ships to suit the national policy, although it was done with hesitation and false 

 steps which are not without interest to us in this study. 



As the wooden ships of the Civil War became worn out, the Congress author- 

 ized in 1882 the adoption of steel vessels ; the first of these were small cruisers 

 whose purpose was chiefly to continue the police work of the navy in time of peace, 

 particularly in countries with unstable governments. The designing and building 

 of these ships served to educate our naval architects and shipyards in steel con- 

 struction. Indeed the plans of several of the earlier ones were purchased abroad 

 and in others we imitated foreign models without any thought that designs suitable 

 to another country's necessities did not perforce suit ours. 



One of the most instructive of these misfit designs was that of the New York, 

 to understand which we must go far afield and begin with a consideration of the 

 international relations of France and Great Britain in the eighties of the last 

 century. 



At this time the relations of those powers were not as cordial as they now are ; 

 Germany had not come to the front as the commercial and naval rival of Great 

 Britain so prominently as at present. The fleet of France easily led those of the 

 other countries of the Continent of Europe, and was second only to that of England. 

 The two navies looked at each other as probable and formidable adversaries. 



While the French navy recognized its inferiority to the British in combatant 

 strength, its strategic studies led it to believe that it might very seriously embar- 

 rass and even distress Great Britain by intercepting the latter's seaborne commerce. 



With this purpose in view the French Government of the day laid down a num- 

 ber of commerce destroyers of the type of the Tage and Cecille ; swift ships lightly 

 armed, to act from French ports against the hostile shipping in the neighborhood of 

 the British Isles. 



The British replied a year or two later with the Blake and Blenheim, some- 

 what larger, faster and more heavily armed and protected to act as commerce pro- 

 tectors — to chase the French commerce destroyers from the seas. 



Here on both sides we have national policy legitimately controlling ship design. 



The American Congress at this time was desirous in a general way of build- 

 ing up the navy, but the Navy Department had no idea of co-ordinating the build- 

 ing program with the national policy which was then as now "America for the 

 Americans." This policy called for a fleet capable of maintaining the control of 



