There is a sense in which all the British ships to which reference has thus far been made may be roughly regarded as developments of, or at least as starting from, the _Devastation_, or British Monitor type of ship, for in all of them masts and sails have been done away with, and steam propulsion relied upon, a single military mast alone remaining.[1] We have now to notice another and more numerous class of ships, which may be regarded as the lingering representatives of those sailing-ships which have come down to us through the long centuries, but which are now rapidly disappearing, yielding to the all-prevalent power of steam. Some of these ships were built for the line of battle, in their respective periods, but as they range in size from about one thousand tons of displacement up to nearly eleven thousand tons, it is obvious that many of them were built for various other employments. In dealing with the full-rigged ships, we are taking account of types of war-ships which, for all but secondary purposes, are passing away. It fell to the lot of the present writer (under the rule of Mr. Childers, then First Lord of the Admiralty, and of Admiral Sir Robert Spencer Robinson, then Controller of the Navy) to introduce the mastless war-ship, and thus to virtually terminate what had certainly been for England a glorious period, _viz._, that of the taunt-masted, full-rigged, and ever-beautiful wooden line-of-battle ship. It is now, alas! but too apparent (from what has gone before) that in virtually terminating that period, and opening the era of the steam and steel fighting engine, we were also introducing an era in which fantastic and feeble people might but too easily convert what ought to have been the latest and greatest glory of England into her direct peril, and possibly even her early overthrow. The first British iron-clad (neglecting the “floating batteries” of 1854) was the _Warrior_, a handsome ship 380 feet long, furnished with steam-power, and provided with masts, spars, and a large spread of canvas. Her ends were unprotected by armor, and her steering gear consequently much exposed. She was succeeded by a long series of full-rigged iron-clads, all of them supplied with steam-power likewise, the series continuing down to the present time. The little dependence which is now placed in the British navy upon the use of sail-power in armored ships will be seen, however, when it is stated that of all the ships protected by side armor which are now under construction in the royal dockyards, but two are to be given any sail-power at all, and these are to be rigged on two masts only, although the ships are of large size, and intended for cruising in distant seas.[2]