The destruction in such short spaces of time of the Spanish fleets in the Pacific and then in the Atlantic, with such little injury to the American side, demonstrated most unmistakably the importance and power of the new American navy. A few years later the famous cruise round the world was undertaken by an American fleet, and enabled the powers of the Old World to inspect some of the ships, and others of later date, which wrought such havoc. Yet such has been the progress of naval construction that not one of the ships which made the cruise is now included in the first rank of the American fighting line. After the Japanese had decided to adopt war vessels of the Western types, they ordered a number of vessels of various kinds from builders in the United Kingdom. Their first ironclad frigate was the _Foo-So_, launched from the slip in Messrs. Samuda’s yard at Poplar, from which the _Thunderbolt_, the first ironclad ever built for the British Navy, took the water. Another coincidence was that both the _Thunderbolt_ and the _Foo-So_ were launched with every armour-plate upon them. The _Foo-So_ had as her main deck battery, which was protected by armour 8 inches thick, four Krupp’s long 23-cm. breech-loading guns, each weighing 15¼ tons. On the upper deck were placed two long 17-cm. Krupp guns of 5½ tons each, but these were unprotected. The main deck battery projecting beyond the sides, permitted of a greater training to the guns. She carried a powerful ram, and her bowsprit, as was the custom with all vessels at that time fitted with a ram and bowsprit, was made so that it could be hauled inboard when a ramming attack was to be made. The ship was belted on the water-line with 9-inch armour and the vital parts were equally well protected. She was of 3,700 tons displacement, and fitted with trunk engines of 3,500 h.p. which, with a steam pressure of 60 lb., were calculated to give her a speed of fourteen knots; her coal capacity was expected to enable her to cover 4,500 miles at moderate speed. The first warship on Western lines which the Japanese built was a little barque-rigged vessel, the _Seika_, launched in 1875, a model of which is now (1911) in the Museum at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.