148 
THE WORLDS WARSHIPS. 
Museum at Greenwich, was, in fact, thought worthy of a place in the 
Eoyal Naval Exhibition at Chelsea this summer, while our Admiralty 
even caused at one time a ship of 74 guns to be constructed on the 
exact lines of the French ship Belleisle, which we had taken from the 
French at Cape St. Vincent. I have, too, a vivid recollection, though 
I cannot turn up the passage, in “ James' Naval History," of the way 
in which too many of these good sailors were spoilt in our hands by 
being re-armed with a much heavier armament. A fault which is still 
often alleged against the British Admiralty. 
The French were also in advance of us in using steam motive 
power and in the introduction of the screw propeller, and, in fact, led 
the way in the matter of armoured ships. The idea of armour pro¬ 
tection is said to have originated with floating batteries in the great 
siege of Gibraltar, but whether so or not it is undoubtedly to the 
initiative of Louis Napoleon that the modern birth took place. Five 
French floating batteries were commenced in September, 1854, and 
launched in the spring of the following year. They were all of the 
same size, length 172 feet, breadth 44 feet, and 9 feet draught. The 
thickness of armour was 4*5 inches, with 17 inches of wood backing. 
They are said to have done excellent service in the Black Sea, where 
they arrived 17th October, 1855, a week earlier than three English 
sister ships—the Terror, Thunderbolt, and Etna—built from the same 
designs lent by the French Government. None of these floating 
batteries are still in either service with the exception of the Terror, 
which, with its machinery removed, figures in our .Navy List as at 
Bermuda. They were undoubtedly, however, a success, and to the 
French mind all that seemed necessary was to adapt their system of 
iron defence to ships of sea-going qualities. 
Experiments were accordingly set on foot, and in March, 1858, the 
celebrated French Constructor, Dupuy de Lome, commenced the first 
iron-clad frigate, the Gloire, quickly followed by the Invincible and 
the Normandie ; meanwhile the Constructor Audenet was permitted to 
build a similar vessel only of iron, to test a comparison with the three 
wooden frigates. 
These four vessels were completely armoured above the water-line 
with five inches of iron, that being sufficient to keep out the projectile 
of a 68-pr., all that was then considered necessary. They had an 
armament of 36 5-ton guns, in a single broadside battery, extending 
along the whole length of the main deck; the ports, however, being 
only 6*25 feet above the water-line, they had constantly to be kept 
closed. 
It was not till the Gloire was almost completed that we, who by no 
means favoured the new stylo of vessel, saw fit to lay down the War¬ 
rior, followed by the Black Prince. 
Simultaneously with our Warrior the French began the wooden 
frigates Magenta and Solferino, very similar to the Gloire, except that 
the iron defence, though kept at five inches in thickness, was diminished 
in height at both stem and stern, but extended amid-ships to a height 
to cover a double-tier battery, of 13 and 12 guns on either side, of 
5-ton guns. 
