Displacement--8,680 tons. Length--325ft. Beam--59ft. ½in. Mean Draught--26ft. 6ins. H.P.--6,750. Guns--Eight 18-ton M.L.R., two 12½-ton M.L.R., four 6½-ton M.L.R. Armour (iron)--9in. 6in. Belt and Battery. Speed--14.00 kts. (14.69 on the measured mile trials). Coal--610 tons. Cost--Hull and machinery, £361,134. The _Hercules_ was completed in 1868, contemporaneously with the completion of the _Agincourt_ and _Northumberland_, which were very slowly finished. At and about the same time the _Penelope_ was built. She was designed for light draught and river service, her maximum draught being kept down to 17½ft. She carried eight 9-ton guns and had a 6-inch belt. Sir E. J. Reed being absent from office, his chief assistant, afterwards Sir N. Barnaby, was mainly responsible for this ship. She was given twin screws. Captain Coles meanwhile continued to demand turret-ships, and in 1865 submitted a design for a sea-going turret-ship, which was referred to a Committee of Naval Officers. They declined to approve the design, but expressed much interest in the principle involved, and recommended that an Admiralty design on similar principles should be worked out, and a ship built to it. This eventuated in the _Monarch_, which in substance was an ordinary ironclad of less freeboard than usual (14ft.) with two turrets on the upper deck, carrying each a pair of the heaviest guns then in existence (25 tons). [Illustration: BELLEROPHON. HERCULES. AUDACIOUS. SULTAN. ALEXANDRA. BROADSIDE AND CENTRAL BATTERY SHIPS OF THE REED ERA.] It is difficult to ascertain what part (if any) Sir E. J. Reed had in the design of the _Monarch_. At a later date in the work already referred to (1869) he criticised her severely enough.[97] “I have already intimated that the enlarged adoption of the turret system has usually been associated in my mind with those classes of vessels in which masts and sails are not required. It is well known that others have taken a wider view of its applicability, and have contended that it is, and has all along been, perfectly well adapted for rigged vessels. I have never considered it wholly inapplicable to such vessels: on the contrary, I have myself projected designs of sea-going and rigged turret-ships, which I believe to be safe, commodious, and susceptible of perfect handling under canvas. But most assuredly the building of such vessels was urged by many persons long before satisfactory methods of designing them had been devised; and my clear and strong conviction at the moment of writing these lines (March 31, 1869) is that no satisfactorily designed turret-ship with rigging has yet been built, or even laid down.