“... It is needless to comment on the facts. They speak for themselves. The condensers will be repaired, no doubt, and strengthened and modified; but no engineer can guarantee that they will not fail again, or, if they turn out a permanent job, that the cylinders will not split, or some other of the mishaps to which marine engines in the Navy are subject may not happen. If the failure takes place in the day of battle it will constitute little short of a national calamity. Even as it is, it must be looked on as a most fortunate circumstance that the sea was perfectly smooth and the vessel near a port. Had the breakdown occurred during the six hours’ run of the ship--which was to have been made on Wednesday--and in a stiff breeze blowing on a lee shore, the ship might have been lost before an effort could have been made to save her. Very important improvements in marine engines of large size must be made before we can reconcile ourselves to the adoption of mastless sea-going monitors.” With such labour and travail was the modern British battleship born! Public opinion decidedly modified naval construction--leading, as it did, to a considerable delay with the _Thunderer_,[111] the re-designing of the _Fury_, and the building of some old-type ships which else had probably never been constructed. As already mentioned, Sir E. J. Reed left the Admiralty before the _Devastation_ was completed. None the less the ships which immediately followed were in all essential particulars “Reed Ships,” and so are included in this chapter. The _Devastation_, owing to the Committee on Designs, received certain minor modifications before completion. These mainly concerned the hatches. Her sister ship, the _Thunderer_, built at Pembroke and engined by Humphrys, was held back, pending the _Devastation’s_ trials, and not completed till 1877. Save that in one turret she carried a couple of 38 ton (12.5-inch) instead of 35 ton (12-inch) guns, she was a replica of the _Devastation_. A third ship of the same type, named the _Fury_, was in hand, but criticisms of the _Devastation_ caused her to be re-designed, and she was eventually completed as the _Dreadnought_. In her the very low freeboard forward and aft of the _Devastation_ type was done away with and freeboard maintained at a uniform medium height. The _Devastation_ and _Thunderer_ had their armour-plates amidships pierced with square portholes. These with some reason were attacked as likely to weaken the armour very considerably, and the _Dreadnought_ was built entirely wall-sided and so depended on artificial ventilation, known in the Navy in those days as “potted air,” even more than her predecessors. Particulars of the _Dreadnought_:-- Displacement--10,820 tons. Length--320ft. Beam--63ft. 10in. Draught--26ft. 9in. Armament--Four 38-ton M.L.R., two 14in. torpedo tubes.