After the loss of the _Captain_ considerable panic on the subject of turret-ships arose. The _Monarch_ was submitted to a number of tests which, however, generally proved satisfactory, and there was never anything to be said against her except that the forecastle and the poop necessitated by her being a rigged ship, negatived one of the principal advantages of the turret system. To the loss of the _Captain_ is to be traced some of the extraordinary opposition which the _Devastation_ idea subsequently encountered. The various writings of Sir E. J. Reed make it abundantly clear that just as in the _Bellerophon_ he had realised that an ironclad battleship must be something more than an old-type vessel with some armour on her, so he realised from the first that the ordinary sea-going warship with turrets on deck, instead of guns in the battery, was no true solution of the turret problem. There is ample evidence that he studied the monitors of the American Civil War with a balanced intelligence far ahead of his day, taking into consideration every _pro_ and _con_ with absolute impartiality, and applying the knowledge thus gained to the different conditions required for the British Fleet. It is no exaggeration to say that he was the only man who really kept his head while the turret-ship controversy reigned; the one man who thought while others argued. He swiftly recognised the tremendous limitations of the American low-freeboard monitors, and at an early date evolved his own idea of the “breastwork monitor,” which began with the Australian _Cerberus_, and ended with the predecessor of the present _Dreadnought_. The ships of this type varied considerably from each other in detail; but the general principle of all was identical. All, whether coast-defence or sea-going, were “mastless”; all, while of low freeboard fore and aft, carried their turrets fairly high up on a heavily armed redoubt amidships. Side by side with them he developed the central battery ironclads of this particular era. He ceased to be Chief Constructor before either type reached its apotheosis; but all may be deemed lineal descendants of his original creations. [Illustration: THE OLD “INVINCIBLE.” 1872.] First, however, it is desirable to revert to the Reed broadside and central battery-ships. The _Audacious_ class, which followed closely upon the _Hercules_, and were contemporary in the matter of design, were avowedly “second-class ships,” intended for service in distant seas. The ships of this class, of which the first was completed in 1869 and the last in 1873, were the _Audacious_, _Invincible_, _Iron Duke_, _Vanguard_, _Swiftsure_, and _Triumph_. As the sketch plan illustrations indicate, the main deck battery in them was more centralised than in the _Hercules_, while instead of the bow battery they carried on their upper decks four 6½-ton guns capable of firing directly ahead or astern.