“To my mind the Admiralty, while protecting certain parts and contents of their largest ships from injury from shell fire, have made the fatal error of failing to protect the ship itself, which contains them all, from being too readily deprived of stability and made to capsize. The advocates of the alternative system must not repeat this error, or, if they do, they must not expect me to become their ally. On the other hand, if they will join me in despising what are merely specious elements of safety, and in demanding those which are real, if they will insist that our principal and most costly ships at least shall be so constructed as to keep afloat and upright for a reasonable length of time in battle, in spite of any form of attack, so as to give their gallant crews a fair chance of achieving their objects, they will not find me averse to any improvement whatever. When a suitable opportunity offers I shall be happy to show to Admiral Sir George Elliot that he has not been alone in seeking to develop the cellular or raft-deck system, and that it has, in fact, capabilities which possibly he himself may not yet have fully realized.” The same number of the _Times_ contains a reply to Mr. Reed’s letter of April 8, 1885, by Mr. White, mainly devoted to a refutation of certain charges of no interest to us, but containing the following paragraphs: “I must refer to the passage in which Sir Edward Reed quotes a description of the damage done to the _Huascar_ in her action with the two Chilian iron-clads.