After the completion of the canal, Prince Potemkin induced Bentham to accept military service, and appointed him to the command of a battalion stationed at Critcheff, in White Russia, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. As the prince's manufactories were in the neighbourhood of Critcheff, Bentham offered to superintend them. This offer was gladly received; and as the management of the works had been previously grossly misconducted, the lieutenant-colonel soon perceived the necessity of his own constant inspection of what was going on, and for this purpose contrived a panoptican building or inspection-house, the centre of which commanded a view of all its parts. His brother Jeremy was on a visit whilst he was devising this panoptican, and the contrivance has frequently on this account been attributed to Jeremy, although in his works Jeremy repeatedly says it was his brother's. Up to this time the panoptican principle has only been adopted in gaols; but Jeremy Bentham has shown that it is equally desirable for a great variety of buildings. Bentham's next invention was a sort of jointed vessel, for the conveyance of the Empress Catherine down the Dnieper and its affluents, which were shallow, tortuous, and their navigation much impeded by sandbanks and sunken trees. This vessel was in six links, drawing only six inches of water when loaded, and with 124 men at the oars on board. Many more were constructed on the same principle, for carrying the produce of the prince's establishments and manufactories to the Black Sea. On the breaking out of war with Turkey, Bentham was sent to the south with his battalion, of which, according to orders, he had made sailors and shipwrights; and shortly afterwards, by the joint order of Souvaroff and Admiral Mardvinoff, he was commanded to fit out vessels at Cherson to oppose the enemy. It happened that he had the sole command of the arsenal at Cherson, in which he found an immense stock of ordnance of all descriptions, but no better navigable vessels than the pleasure-galleys which had brought the empress and her suite down the Dnieper. But nothing daunted, Bentham set to work. He reflected that it is not size of vessel which ensures victory, but that it is gained by the fleet that can throw the heaviest weight of missile in the shortest time, joined to the facility of manœuvring vessels. Strengthening his vessels as well as he could, he fitted them with as heavy artillery as they could possibly bear, and when all was finished, took the command of the flotilla himself, and had the satisfaction of engaging the Turks on three separate days, in all of which actions he was equally victorious, notwithstanding the enemy's flotilla were doubly as numerous and powerful. For these three victories Bentham received from the empress a like number of honourable rewards--rank in the army, a gold-hilted sword, and the Cross of the Order of St. George.