A comparison between the gunboats of the British Navy, as revealed by the foregoing quotation, and the type introduced by the _Handig Vlug_ is striking. She was stated to be the first vessel of any class, built on this side of the Atlantic, to carry her armour on the deflective principle instead of offering vertical resistance to the impact of shot. She was constructed entirely of steel, her plates below the water-line being only ¼ inch thick, but above the water-line they were ⅜ inch thick, and the dome or cupola in which her battery was placed was composed of plates of similar thickness. This cupola occupied 60 feet in the centre of the vessel with a grated top for ventilation, and above this was a small pilot-house, resembling the usual American design, about 5 feet high. The cupola had three gunports at either end, permitting the guns to be trained ahead and astern, and on the bows or quarters. It also had a number of holes for rifle fire, which could be covered with brass slides when not in use. She was intended to be sufficiently fast under steam to be able to outstrip a battery operating on land in a country with so many watercourses as Holland, or to be rifle-proof if sent to Javanese waters. She was to carry two 12-pounder rifle shell guns and fifty riflemen. The length of this “hornet,” as she was called, was 100 feet between perpendiculars, her beam was 17 feet, and her depth 6 feet 6 inches, and she drew only 3 feet of water; her tonnage was 138 tons. In rough weather this little low ship made a speed of ten knots on her trial trip, and being a twin-screw vessel--the engines and ship were built by the Dudgeons--she was put through some tests in the presence of Admiralty representatives, and made a complete circle in two minutes forty-seven seconds, and another in three minutes, while in going ahead at full speed the course of the vessel was reversed by the altered action of the screws in one minute. The tests were held to “prove the worth of the double or twin-screw principle for purposes of warfare, as it has been proved before for some time for purposes of commerce, for handiness of any vessel under steam power is equally valuable for both purposes, whether in avoiding the shoals of a tortuous shallow river or in flanking the shore battery of an enemy.”[53]