Ascending in the scale of protection, and dealing for the present with sea-going vessels only, we come to a long series of ships which are undeserving of the designation of armored ships, because they are liable to destruction by guns without the limited amount of armor which they carry being attacked at all. These ships are the _Impérieuse_ and _Warspite_, previously discussed, and also the _Ajax_, _Agamemnon_, _Colossus_, _Edinburgh_, and the six large ships of the “Admiral” class. Any one who has intelligently perused the report of the committee on the _Inflexible_ would justify the inclusion of that ship in this category; but she is omitted here out of deference to the strenuous exertions which were made to invent or devise some little stability for her, even when her bow and stern are supposed to be badly injured, and out of compassion upon those officers of the Admiralty who have long ago repented those trying compromises with conscience by aid of which they expressed some slight confidence in her ability to float upright with her unarmored ends badly damaged. She is omitted also out of gratitude to Lord Brassey for a sentence in which, while saving her from being placed in so dreadful a category, he honestly places some of the other ships in it without qualification or circumlocution. He says: “In one important particular the _Ajax_ and _Agamemnon_ are inferior to the _Inflexible_. The central armored citadel is not, as it is in the case of the _Inflexible_, of sufficient displacement to secure the stability of the ship should the unarmored ends be destroyed.”[8] In another place the former Secretary to the Admiralty, referring to the report of the _Inflexible_ committee (which was nominated by the Admiralty, and under heavy obligations to support it), says: “It is doubtless very desirable that our armored ships should possess a more ample margin of stability than is provided in the armored citadel of the _Inflexible_. The ideas of the committee and of Sir Edward Reed on this point were in entire accord.”[9] [Illustration: THE “COLOSSUS.”] It has recently been acknowledged that, as Lord Brassey states, the _Ajax_ and _Agamemnon_ are so constructed that they are dependent for their ability to float, the right side uppermost, upon their unarmored ends. To call such ships “armored ships” is, as we have seen, to mislead the public. But some pains have been taken of late to show that the “Admiral” class is better off in this respect, and certainly the known opinions of the present writer have been so far respected in these ships that their armored citadels, so called, have been made somewhat longer and of greater proportionate area. The following figures have been given: Percentage of water-line area covered by armor. Inflexible 42. Agamemnon 45.4 Collingwood 54.15 Camperdown 56.35