We are now in a position to review the British navy, and to see of what ships it really consists. In this review it will not be necessary to pass before the eyes of the reader that large number of vessels of which even the boilers and magazines are without any armor or thick-plate protection whatever. It will help, nevertheless, to make the nature and extent of the navy understood if these are grouped and summarized in a few sentences. Neglecting altogether all large vessels with timber frames (which may be regarded as out of date, seeing that all the war vessels of considerable size now built for the navy have iron or steel frames), it may be first said that there are but three ships of the large or frigate class in the British navy which carry no thick protecting plate at all, _viz._, the _Inconstant_, the _Shah_, and the _Raleigh_. Of much less size than these, and equally devoid of protection, are the two very fast vessels, the _Iris_ and _Mercury_, built as special despatch-vessels, steaming at their best at about eighteen knots. Among the unarmored corvettes are the _Active_, _Bacchante_, _Boadicea_, _Euryalus_, _Rover_, and _Volage_, all exceeding fourteen knots in speed, and all more than three thousand tons displacement. Then follow thirty-six smaller and less swift corvettes, nearly one-half the number being built wholly of wood, most of which exceed, however, thirteen knots in speed; and below these about an equal number of sloops of less speed and tonnage. The smaller gun-vessels and gun-boats need not be summarized. [Illustration: THE “INCONSTANT.”] Passing on to vessels which, although themselves unarmored, have thick-plate decks to give some protection to the machinery, we observe first that there are eight ships of three thousand five hundred to three thousand seven hundred tons built and under construction, _viz._, the _Amphion_, _Arethusa_, _Leander_, _Phaeton_, _Mersey_, _Severn_, _Forth_, and _Thames_.[7] Lord Brassey very properly classes such of these vessels as he mentions in his lists as “unarmored ships,” although, as before mentioned, when two of them—the _Mersey_ and _Severn_—were designed, with a deck two inches thick, the Admiralty at first ventured to put them forward as “armored ships.”