It may be surmised that all articles of the new naval creed in which Perry so promptly uttered his faith, were very disagreeable to many of the old school. The belief in the three-decker line-of-battle ship and sailing wooden frigate approached, in many minds, the sacredness of an article of religion. The new appliances and discoveries which upset the old traditions savoured of rank heresy. Those who held to the old articles, and to wooden walls were perforce obliged, as ecclesiastics are, when driven to the wall, to strengthen their position by damnatory clauses. Anathemas, as numerous as those of the Council of Trent, were hurled at the new reformation from the side which considered that there was no need for reform. It was in vain that the employment of explosive shells was denounced as inhuman. History follows logic. If “all is fair in war,” then inventions first branded as too horrible for use by human beings, will be finally adopted. The law of military history moves toward perfection in the killing machine. Laymen and landsmen, outside the navy, who look upon naval improvement and innovation as necessities, in order that our soldiers of the sea may be abreast of other nations in the art of war, consider radical changes a matter of course: not so the old salts who have hardened into a half century of routine, until their manner of professional thinking is simple Chinese. They saw that horizontal shell firing was likely to turn floating castles into fire-wood. In the good old days ships were rarely sunk in battle, whether in squadron line or in naval duels. Though hammered at for hours, and reduced to hulks and charnel houses, they still floated; but with the new weapon, sinking an enemy was comparatively easy work. British oak or Indian teak was nothing against bombs that would tear out the sides. The vastness of the target surface, on frigate or liner, was now a source of weakness, for shells produced splinters of a size unknown before. A little ship could condense a volcano, and carry a sapping and mining train in a bucket. The old three-deckers must go, and the frigates become lower and narrower with fewer and heavier guns. A brave British officer is said to have cried out, “For God’s sake, keep out the shells.” New means of defence must be provided. The mollusk-like wooden ships must become crustacean in iron coats. The demonstrated efficiency of shells and shell-guns, and the increased accuracy of fire of the Paixhan smooth-bore cannon—cultivated to high pitch even before the introduction of rifles—had made impossible the old naval duel and line-of-battle.