Lord Charles Beresford, entering the Navy at the beginning of the changes from sails to steam, from wood to iron, and from iron to steel, learned, like his contemporaries, the whole art of the sailing ship sailor, added to it the skill of the sailor of the transition period, and again added to that the whole body of knowledge of the seaman of the New Navy. He saw the days when the sailing officers hated steam and ignored it so far as possible; as in the case of the admiral who, entering harbour under steam and sail, gave his sailing orders but neglected the engineer, and so fouled the wharf, and said, "Bless me, I forgot I was in a steamship!" Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald, who entered the Navy five years before Lord Charles Beresford, describes the transitional period in his _Memories of the Sea_. Speaking of the _Hercules_, one of the new central-battery, armoured-waterline ironclads, to which he was appointed first lieutenant when she was first commissioned in 1868, Admiral Fitzgerald writes:--"The _Hercules_ was the most powerful ironclad afloat, in this or any other country. She carried 18-ton guns--muzzle-loaders--and nine inches of armour, though this was only in patches; but she had a good deal of six-inch armour, and her water-line and battery were well protected, as against ordnance of that date. She was full-rigged, with the spars and sails of a line-of-battle ship, and she could steam fourteen knots--on a pinch, and could sail a _little_. In fact she was the masterpiece of Sir Edward Reed's genius. "Up to the advent of the _Hercules_ the three great five-masted ships of 10,000 tons, the _Minotaur_, _Agincourt_ and {50} _Northumberland_, had been considered the most powerful ships in the British Navy, and probably in the world, and Sir Edward Reed's triumph was, that he built a ship of about 8500 tons which carried a more powerful armament, thicker armour, fifty feet shorter and thus much handier, steamed the same speed, and I was going to say--sailed better; but I had better say--did not sail quite so badly; and it must ever be borne in mind that at this transition stage in the development of the Navy, our rulers at Whitehall insisted that our ships of all classes should have sail power suitable to their tonnage. 'For,' said they, 'the engines might break down, and then where would you be?'" (_Memories of the Sea_, Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald, chap. xiv.) {51} CHAPTER V THE MIDSHIPMAN OF 1864