Since the peace, a good deal of attention has been paid to the construction of ships of war. But it appears to have been more successful in the economical arrangement of the interior than in the figure, which is the essential point for sailing. The names of Seppings, Symonds, Hayes, Inman, and others, have attained some distinction; but we have not yet obtained any certain model of a good sailing ship. Some vessels have succeeded tolerably, and others have been total failures, though built on the same stocks and by the same surveyor. Yet the strength, the stowage, and the safety, have been improved. It is rather extraordinary that government has never offered a handsome reward for the invention of the best sailing model; as was done so long since, and with such effect, in the instance of the time-keepers. Five thousand pounds for a certain approach to the object, and five thousand more for complete success, would set all the private builders on the pursuit; and it can scarcely be doubted that they would ultimately succeed. Even now, the private yacht-builders produce some of the fastest sailing vessels in the world; the merchant ship-builders send out fine ships, of the frigate size, and the private steam-ship builders are unrivalled; while we have continual complaints of the deficiencies of the vessels built in the royal dockyards. Some of those complaints may be fictitious, and some ignorant; but the constant changes in their structure, and their perpetual repairs, imply inferiority in our naval schools of architecture. The chief attention of the royal dockyards, within these few years, has been turned to the building of large steam-ships, armed with guns of the heaviest calibre. But the attempt is evidently in a wrong direction. The effort to make fighting ships of steamers, ruins them in both capacities. It destroys their great quality, speed; and it exposes them with an inadequate power to the line-of-battle ship. They are incomparable as _tugs_ to a fleet, as conveying troops, as outlying vessels, as every thing but men-of-war. A shot would break up their whole machinery, and leave them at the mercy of the first frigate that brought its broadside to bear upon them in their helpless condition. In all the trials of the fleet during the last two years, the heavy armed steamers were invariably left behind in a gale, while one of the light steamers ran before every frigate.