The French adopted for naval service four different patterns of heavy breech-loading rifled guns, all made of cast iron, and strengthened behind the trunnions with steel rings which were shrunk on. Their weight varied from 21 tons 13 cwt., with a calibre of 10.82 inches, to the gun of 4 tons 18.5 cwt., with a calibre of 6.48 inches, firing projectiles respectively of 476 lb. and 99 lb. The weight of the charge was rather more than one-sixth of that of the projectile. The guns were mounted on wrought-iron carriages and slides constructed on the box girder system. As the powers possessed a great number of old smooth-bore guns and rifled guns were expensive, several attempts at a compromise were made by lining the smooth-bore guns and converting them into rifled guns, the lining being rifled according to whichever system the power owning the gun happened to prefer at the moment. The Dutch Government is said to have set the example of national frugality in this respect. How slow the Admiralty was, is shown by the statement of the Secretary to the Admiralty in the House of Commons in March, 1881, to the effect that “at this moment there is not a single heavy breech-loading gun mounted on any of our ships, but by the end of next year a very substantial beginning would have been made towards arming our fleet with breech-loaders.... The Admiralty was driven to the step by the fact that a high velocity was now required for the projectile, that high velocity was only obtainable by a great length of gun, and that to load a gun over a certain length at the muzzle became impracticable under the ordinary conditions of mounting guns afloat.” The Government, it was contended, was now able to profit by the experience which foreign nations had gained, and intended to improve upon the guns which were in use abroad. But whatever may have been the official view, the fact remains that the Admiralty was years behind other nations, that Woolwich, in spite of official claims, discovered nothing that had not been known to be possible a decade earlier at least, and that the Navy was armed with out-of-date muzzle-loaders. Fortunate it no doubt was for this country that it had no wars in which its Navy could be tested against a navy armed with breech-loaders.