Four ships of the _Amphion_ Class--_Amphion_, _Arethusa_, _Leander_, and _Phæton_, of which the first (_Arethusa_) was laid down in 1880--represented the first Barnaby idea of the protected cruiser. They were of 4,300 tons displacement, and 16.5 knots nominal speed. They carried ten 6-inch guns, and a 1½-inch deck amidships. According to the ideas of those days they were heavily over-gunned. They always steamed well; but it is doubtful whether Barnaby, left to himself, would ever have produced them. Incidentally, they were always bad sea-boats. In 1883, completed about the same time as the _Victoria_, the _Mersey_ class--_Mersey_, _Thames_, _Severn_, and _Forth_--of 4,050 tons displacement, and carrying two 8-inch and ten 6-inch, were commenced: practically early essays at the _Orlando_ class idea which followed. The _Orlandos_, on only a thousand or so tons more displacement, carried 9.2’s instead of 8-inch, had armour-belts as well as protective decks, and were a good knot faster. Both the _Amphions_ and _Merseys_ may be described as representing strictly naval Admiralty ideas--the _Orlando_, Barnaby ones. Each type was quickly rendered obsolete by the coming of the quick-firer; but the Barnaby type of cruiser, for 20 per cent. extra displacement, certainly offered better chances than any rival proposition, if only we consider matters in the light of what existed in those days and what promised best at that time. So ends the Barnaby era. Barnaby’s constructional ideas were blown to mincemeat by the advent of the quick-firer. Even to-day his ideas seem somewhat obsolete. Yet a few years hence (if big ships survive) they stand every chance of being reverted to, because to-day the big gun has more or less come back to where it was in 1875–1885. Barnaby, though he worked into its era, never realised the preponderance or possible preponderance of the “secondary gun.” In his era it fired too slowly to count for very much; in our own, range neutralises whatever it may have accomplished in the rapidity of fire direction. Likely enough, the reversion to Barnaby ideals, which is reasonably probable for the immediate future, will be merely a phase; and casual historians will ever put him down as the naval constructor who was least able to anticipate the years ahead of his creations. But a hundred years hence Barnaby may come into his own in a way little suspected to-day. A hundred years hence, when all the most modern ideas are ancient history, Barnaby may stand with Phineas Pett, and the Navy which he created stand for something infinitely more than the scrap heap to which a later age swiftly relegated it. Only the historian of the distant future can estimate him at his real value. His own generation never placed much faith in his ships; the generation that followed generally regarded them with scorn. It was probably wrong, but only the future can prove it to have been so. _GUNS IN THE ERA._