There was a good deal of controversy about this time as to the relative merits of "broadside" fire and "end-on" fire. Space forbids us from entering further into this question, but, generally speaking, if a British ship carried four guns heavier than the rest, they were so arranged that two could be fired ahead or astern, and all four on either broadside. But in a French ship the four corresponding guns would be each mounted singly in barbettes arranged diamond-fashion, so that three could be fired either ahead, astern, or on either broadside. A couple of armoured cruisers, the _Imperieuse_ and _Warspite_, were built, probably as an experiment, on these lines, on the latter of which I had the honour of serving for something like twelve months. They were originally brig-rigged, like the _Temeraire_, but this was done away with later and replaced by a single military mast. Personally I do not think they were a success. The _Warspite_, at any rate, was a very wet ship. When steaming against quite a moderate sea the water ran all over her, into the barbettes and down below, and she was much cramped in many ways by the arrangement of her guns. The _Devastation_ and her sisters proved very formidable and successful ships, but with the idea of getting a heavier fire ahead or astern a new departure was made in the _Inflexible_--the biggest ironclad we had yet constructed--by placing her turrets, not one forward and the other aft on the centre line of the ship, but _en echelon_--that is to say, diagonally amidships. Theoretically this arrangement, which had been copied from the big Italian ships _Duilio_ and _Dandolo_, had a good deal to recommend it, but practically there is more to be said against it than for it. Nevertheless, four other smaller ships were built on these lines, the _Ajax_ and _Agamemnon_--which gained notoriety as being almost impossible to steer--and the _Edinburgh_ and _Colossus_. The last two were armed with breech-loading guns, which were now superseding the old muzzle-loaders to which the ordnance authorities had clung with such obstinacy long after every other nation had consigned them to the scrap heap.