About this time, so I was informed by Sir William White, who was then chief constructor of the British Navy, Lord Rothschild brought to him Mr. Isaac L. Rice, president of the Electric Boat Company, who controlled the Holland patents and who offered to build duplicates of the United States boats for England. Sir William thought this gave the Admiralty the opportunity to satisfy the public demands and to meet the French, their hereditary enemy--this was before the establishment of the "Entente Cordiale"--in their development of the submarine. Consequently an arrangement was made for the manufacture of this type of vessel for England by the Vickers Company. An agreement was drawn, so Sir William informed me, giving "Vickers" an exclusive monopoly of building submarines for the British Navy for a period of ten years, the consideration being that they should have available for the use of the British Admiralty all the details of the development work of the Electric Boat Company in America. This, plus their own experience and development work in England, which should be kept secret, should enable England to keep on an equal footing with France. Sir William informed me that he thought this had been a mistake in policy, as it had deprived the government of the opportunity to secure improvements that had been developed by other inventors and builders who had made greater progress on independent lines. England, therefore, started to build her first submarine, known as the "A" type. These were practically duplicates of the United States _Adder_ and _Moccasin_ type, now also designated as "A's" Nos. 1 to 7. England has been particularly unfortunate with this class of submarine, several of them having plunged to the bottom with the loss of their crews during peace-time manoeuvres. [Illustration: Modern French Submarine of Lauboeuf Design. Constructed by Schneider and Company] [Illustration: Modern Italian Submarine--Fiat Construction--Laurenti Design. Vessel of the Double Hull Buoyant Superstructure. Hydroplane Controlled Type] [Illustration: German "U" Boat--Krupp Design VARIOUS TYPES OF MODERN FOREIGN SUBMARINES 27 and 28, vertical rudders; 29 and 30, hydroplanes for controlling depth of submergence; 9, periscopes; 21, engines; 20, motors; 22, storage batteries; 4, drop keel; 31, torpedo tubes.]