the British Empire be destroyed by taking the choice of weapons out of England’s hands? The prospect was alluring. Yet the ironclad survived the menace and remained the standard unit of naval power. Expensive, designed with several aims and essentially complex,--a compromise, like man himself,--it could not be replaced by a number of small, cheap, uni-functional vessels, each constructed for one sole and special purpose, without loss of efficiency and concentration of power. Nor could it be supplanted by a type which, like the sea-going torpedo-boat, could only count on an ascendancy over it in certain moments of its own choosing--for example, at night-time or in a fog. To every novel species of attack the ironclad proved superior, calling to its aid the appropriate defensive measures. FOOTNOTES [1] Sir Harry Nicolas: _History of the Royal Navy_. [2] The greatest authoritative works on ancient and medieval shipping, it should be mentioned, are the _Archéologie Navale_ and the _Glossaire Nautique_ of M. Jal, published in 1840 and 1848 respectively. [3] Corbett: _Drake and the Tudor Navy_. [4] Corbett. [5] Oppenheim. [6] Corbett. [7] Navy Records Soc.: Edited by Sir John Laughton. [8] Cases were known where ships, unfit for sea, completed their voyage in safety, to fall to pieces immediately on being taken into dock and deprived of that continual support which they derived from the water when afloat (_Charnock_). [9] Chief-constructor D. W. Taylor, U.S.N. [10] Creuze: _Shipbuilding_. [11] Manwayring. [12] Navy Records Soc.: 1918. _Edited by_ W. G. Perrin, Esq., O.B.E. [13] Captain John Smith’s _Sea Man’s Grammar_ also appeared in the early part of this century. [14] Sir J. Knowles, F.R.S. [15] Willett: _Memoirs on Naval Architecture_. [16] It has been suggested that the restricted draught given to the Dutch ships, owing to the shallowness of their coast waters, had the result of necessitating a generous breadth, and therefore made them generally stiffer than vessels of English construction. [17] Derrick in his Memoirs refers to this ship us having been built of burnt instead of kilned timber, and as having special arrangements for circulating air in all its parts. [18] Charnock. [19] Colomb: _Sea Warfare_. [20] Creuze: _Papers on Naval Architecture_. [21] Even the scientific Sir William Petty cast a veil of mystery over his processes. “I only affirm,” he writes, “that the perfection of sailing lies in my principle, _finde it out who can!_” (See Pepys’ Diary for 31st July, 1663.) [22] Creuze: _Shipbuilding, Encycl. Brit._, 7th Edition, 1841. It should be mentioned that the work of Dr. Colin McLaurin, of Edinburgh, in giving a mathematical solution for the angles at which a ship’s sails should be set, had received considerable attention on the Continent. [23] See a paper by Mr. Johns, R.C.N.C., in _Trans. I.N.A._ 1910. [24] Willett: _Memoirs on Naval Architecture_.