The torpedo had become fully as great a menace to the modern ship of the line as the shell gun was to the big ship of 1853. The submarine was an infinitely greater menace to it than the crude Russian mines of the Crimean War ever were. Endless potentialities resided in aircraft. Wherefrom it was well argued that out of the next great naval war (despite whatever lesser wars in between may have taught), the battleship was likely to be profoundly modified. That it will be swept out of existence was improbable. The whole lesson of history is that the “capital ship” will ever adjust itself to the needs of the hour. It has always been the essential rallying point of lesser craft--the mobile base to meet the mobile base of the enemy. Meanwhile, it is beyond question that at the time of the Crimean War the British Navy from one cause and another was little better than a paper force. It is plain enough that little remained of the fleet of the Nelson era. The fleet “worried through,” but very clearly it had reached the end of its tether. The reason why will be found in the next chapter. * * * * * The above paragraphs were originally written in 1912. Since then much has happened. In this edition they have only been revised to the extent of substituting the past for the present tense. Nothing has occurred to alter what then was the obvious. X. THE COMING OF THE IRONCLAD. The period immediately following the Crimean War saw a gradual change in the relations between England and France. In 1858 a panic similar to those with which later years have familiarised us began to arise, and in December, 1858, and January, 1859, a committee sat under the Administration of Lord Derby “to consider the very serious increase which had taken place of late years in the Navy Estimates, while it represented that the naval force of the country was far inferior to what it ought to be with reference to that of other Powers, and especially France, and that increased efforts and increased expenditure were imperatively called for to place it on a proper footing.” This committee found that whereas in 1850 there were eighty-six British ships of the line to forty-five French ones, this ratio had altogether ceased to exist; and that both Powers had now twenty-nine screw ships of the line. Any other large ships had ceased to count.