I see no reason why a vessel of 10,000 tons, built entirely for speed, should not, on several points of sailing, go as fast as any torpedo boat, certainly much faster than any ironclad. Her speed, reaching in a strong breeze, would be terrific; and if 'Britannia,' 'Navahoe,' 'Valkyrie,' 'Vigilant,' and vessels of that class can sail ten knots on a wind, why should not she sail fifteen? She would have to be fore and aft rigged, with an immense spread of canvas, very high masts, and very long booms; single sticks would be nowhere; but iron sticks and iron booms can be built up of any length and any strength, and with wire rigging I see no limit to size. Such a vessel amply provided with torpedoes of all descriptions, and all the modern diabolisms for destroying life, would be so dangerous a customer that no ironclad would attack her with impunity. Of course there would occasionally be conditions under which she would be at a disadvantage with ironclads; but, on the other hand, there are many conditions under which ironclads, even the best of them, would be under enormous disadvantages with her. She could circumnavigate the globe without stopping. I believe her passages would be phenomenal, life on board would be bright and healthy, she would be seaworthy, able to keep the seas in all weathers, easily handled, no complicated machinery to fail you at the moment when you were most dependent on it; and then what a beauty she would be! Why, a fleet of such vessels would be a sight for gods and men. We have sailing vessels of 3,000 and 4,000 tons, four-masted, square-rigged; they are built for carrying, not for speed, but even they make passages that to the merchant seaman of a hundred years ago would appear incredible. I probably shall not live to see the clumsy, unwieldy, complicated, unseaworthy machines called ironclads cast aside, wondered at by succeeding generations, as we now wonder at the models of antediluvian monsters at the Crystal Palace; but that such will be their fate I have no doubt whatever. For our battleships we have gone back to the times of knights in armour, when men were so loaded with iron that where they fell there they remained, on their backs or their stomachs, till their squires came to put them on their legs again. I am certain that neither the public, nor the naval authorities of the world, realise what an ironclad in time of war means--positively they will never be safe out of near reach of a coaling station. Suppose--and this is tolerably certain to happen--that when they reach a coaling station they find no coal, or very possibly find it in the hands of the enemy. What are they to do? Without coal to steam back again, or to reach another station, they will be as helpless as any derelict on the ocean: a balloon without gas, a locomotive without steam, a 100-ton gun without powder, would not be so useless as an ironclad without coal.