The Belleville was the first water-tube boiler to come into prominence; other types, however, soon appeared. In the period 1895–98, torpedo gunboats were experimentally fitted as follows:--_Sharpshooter_, Belleville; _Sheldrake_, Babcock; _Seagull_, Niclausse; _Spanker_, Du Temple; _Salamander_, Mumford; _Speedy_, Thornycroft--these three last being of the small tube type. Other existing types were the Yarrow, White-Foster, Normand, Reed, Blechynden, all these being of the small tube type also, and regarded as suitable for small craft only.[19] In the matter of big ships, so far as the British Navy was concerned, “water-tube boiler” for some years meant Bellevilles only, whence it came that in the insensate “Battle of the Boilers,” which presently broke out, Bellevilles were the main object of attack in Parliament and elsewhere. Actually, of course, the whole principle was in the melting pot. All the elements opposed to change in any form rallied to the attack, led on and influenced in some cases by those whose interests were bound up with the old style cylindrical boilers. It was all over again the old story of the fight for the retention of the paddle against the screw propeller, with an equal disregard for facts. Unfortunately the party of progress played somewhat into the hands of the reactionaries. In fitting the Belleville type only, they had not much alternative, other types being then in a less forward state. The error made was that in the wholesale adoption of a new type of steam generator, requiring twice the skill and intelligence necessary for the old type, it was practically impossible to train quickly enough a sufficiency of engineers and stokers. Hence troubles soon arose. An even greater error was that the boilers were mostly built in England to the French specifications, without, in many cases, sufficient experienced supervision; and minor “improvements,” such as fusible plugs and restricting regulations, were introduced by more or less amateur Admiralty authorities--which also produced trouble. For example, French practice had taught that adding lime to the feed water was desirable; but in many British ships this rule was ignored. Again, one Belleville essential was to throw on coal in very small quantities at a time, in contradistinction to the old cylindrical practice in which shovelling on enormous quantities of coal was the recipe for increased speed. This feature was often disregarded.