Next in order of rate in England, but last in development, is what is known as the C class of corvettes. Built of steel, with a displacement of 2380 tons, they truly represent the last development of the type whose foundation was the Hartford, and this type is apparently as great a favorite in the English Navy as the Hartford in her day was in that of the United States. In France the second-rate of the programme of 1873 is a distinctly new type. The Duguay-Trouin in one respect is a departure from French custom, her dimensions being carried to the maximum for this rate, giving her a displacement of 3200 tons, which is an increase over her own immediate predecessors of 1200 tons. Her battery-power is if anything lighter than the proportional French average and below that of the English and American vessels of lighter displacement. She is designed for a speed of 16 knots and a steaming capacity of 3500 miles at 10 knots. The main architectural peculiarity of this vessel is the arrangement for securing great command of fire. Her battery is all carried on the upper deck, whilst she has a clear flush main-deck; the opening of fore-and-aft fire by carrying the gun-platforms beyond the upper-deck rail is also a modification. Contemporaneously with the Duguay-Trouin the Americans introduced a new type which comes nearer a modification of the Raleigh than any other class, although it springs directly from the attempted modification of the Hartford class referred to above by which spar-decks were added to them. The present Hartford, with her spar and main decks, and the development of the type in the Trenton show two ships wherein is well exemplified the absurdity of, as it were, putting new wine into old bottles. The Trenton has a displacement of 3900 tons, a battery of eleven 8-inch rifles, and a speed of 13 knots, with a steaming capacity of 3500 miles at 10 knots. In this ship, as in the Trouin, the dimensions of the second rate are carried to an extreme, although in this case the Americans hold fast to the idea of combining moderate speed with a maximum of battery-power and general cruising qualities. The Hartford, however, having proved herself possessed of all the excellences of her day, and these excellences having been secured by a wise distribution of architectural elements, was sacrificed to the crude development of a new type by the addition of a new deck. Although these two ships belong to the same type and rate, no comparison can be instituted between them, and at the very time that the English perfect the Hartford type in the C class of corvettes a blunder of the Americans disrates the original.