“Mr. White says that no vessel can fight without running risks, and thinks that thick, vertical side-armor, even over a portion of the ship’s length, is not a necessary guarantee of the life of a ship. Well, sir, we are all at liberty to think, or not think, what we please, so far as our sense and judgment will allow us; but Mr. White, like all other depreciators of side-armor, fails utterly to show us what else there is which can be relied upon to keep shell out of a ship, or what can be done to prevent shell that burst inside a ship from spreading destruction all around. He refers us to no experiments to show that the thin plate divisions and coffer-dams, and like devices, will prove of any avail for the purpose proposed. In the absence of any such experiments, he tells us, as others have told us, that Signor Brin and colleagues in the Italian Admiralty consider ‘a minutely subdivided region’ at and below the water-line ‘sufficient defence against gun-fire.’ But I do not think Signor Brin believes anything of the kind; what he believes is that the Italian government cannot afford to build a fleet of properly armored line-of-battle ships for hard and close fighting, and that, looking at their limited resources, a few excessively fast ships, with armor here and there to protect particular parts, and with ample capabilities of retreat to a safe distance, will best serve their purpose. I do not say that he is wrong, and I certainly admire the skill which he has displayed in carrying out his well-defined object. But that object is totally different from ours, and our naval habits, our traditions, our national spirit, the very blood that flows in our veins, prevent such an object from ever becoming ours. “Mr. White all through his letter, in common with some of his late colleagues at the Admiralty, thinks and speaks as if naval warfare were henceforth to be chiefly a matter of dodging, getting chance shots, and keeping out of the enemy’s way; and this may be more or less true of contests between unarmored vessels. But why is not the line-of-battle ship _Collingwood_ to be supposed to steam straight up to the enemy, I should like to know? and if she does, what is to prevent the enemy from pouring a raking fire through her bow, and ripping up at once, even with a single shell, every compartment between the stem and the transverse armored bulkhead?