Full of ardour, delighted to think that I should now escape to the keeper and the rabbits, I jumped up, ran to the table, my foot slipped on the parquet, and I fell face forward with my whole weight upon the poor old man's feet, smashing both foot-rests. The agonising pain shot him into the air and he fell on my back. I have never heard such language before or since. As he rolled off me, he shouted: "Ring the bell, you ---- ----!" In came the butler. "Take that ---- ---- out of my house! Send him back to his ---- ship! Never let me see his ---- face again!" screamed my host. {48} So I departed in the dog-cart. It was many a long day ere I heard the last of my rabbit-shooting from my messmates. A few months afterwards, when I had been less than a year in the _Defence_, Rear-Admiral Charles Eden appointed me to the _Clio_ as senior midshipman. He said he wanted me to learn responsibility. NOTE _The New Ships_.--The predecessors of the _Defence_ and her class were wooden vessels plated with iron armour. The first iron-built, armoured, sea-going British vessel was the _Warrior_, launched in 1860. She was laid down in the previous year, in which Lord Charles Beresford entered the Navy. Several wooden ships (_Royal Oak_, _Caledonia_, _Prince Consort_, _Ocean_, _Royal Alfred_, _Repulse_, _Favorite_, _Research_) were converted into armoured ships during their construction. These were launched from 1862 to 1864. For some years the Admiralty built wooden armoured ships and iron armoured ships simultaneously. From 1860 to 1866, ten iron-built, armoured, sail and steam ships were launched: _Warrior_, _Black Prince_, _Defence_, _Resistance_, _Hector_, _Achilles_, _Valiant_, _Minotaur_, _Agincourt_, _Northumberland_. In 1864 and 1865, five wooden-built, armoured ships were launched: _Lord Clyde_, _Lord Warden_, _Zealous_, _Pallas_, _Enterprise_. The _Royal Sovereign_, launched in 1857 as a wooden line-of-battle ship, was converted in 1862 to an armoured vessel and was equipped with four turrets. She was thus the first turret-ship in the British Navy. The next step was to group the guns in a central armoured battery, and to belt the ship with armour along the water-line. At the same time, more turret-ships were constructed. Earnest controversy was waged among naval authorities as to what were the most important qualities of the fighting ship, to which other qualities must be partially sacrificed; for, broadly speaking, all warships represent a compromise {49} among speed, defence and offence--or engines, armour and guns. The controversy still continues. The disaster which befell the _Captain_ decided, at least, the low-freeboard question in so far as heavily rigged sailing steam vessels were concerned, for the Captain, a rigged low-freeboard turret-ship, capsized on 6th September, 1870. (_The Royal Navy_, vol. i., Laird Clowes.)