"a clever and enterprising man," but not
a shipbuilder or designer, having, in his
plans submitted to the government in 1862,
committed this flagrant error, " that he did
not make provision for sufficient flotation,"
Captain Coles denied any assumption of
ever trying to become either a shipbuilder
or a naval architect, and he showed that
he had left all questions of " displacement,
draught, length, breadth," &c., to the
controller's department. Captain Coles also
proved that he objected to one of the early
turret ships, the Favourite, because her
hull was of wood, and not of iron.

For some time it is evident, from a reperusal
of Captain Coles's letters to the
papers, that he wished for a sea-going
turret ship, but hesitated about his power
of producing one. Lord Clarence Paget
said in 1865, in Parliament, that the great
drawback of the turret ships was the difficulty
of getting space clear of the rigging
round the central cupolas, to give the guns
training room and free scope to work. But
Captain Coles showed he had met and
mastered this difficulty three years before
by inventing the tripod masts. Lord Clarence,
with the usual official cautious
mistrust of new inventions (as if all inventions
were not new at first), still
contended that if one leg of the tripod were
shot away in a sea-fight, " the whole
concern would come down." Not so, but
quite otherwise, replied the indefatigable
and not-to-be-baffied inventor, for, " if one
leg of my tripod is shot away, the other
two mutually support each other; while,
if the ordinary mast is wounded, its fall is
only accelerated by the dragging weight
of the rope rigging. Moreover, if kept
painted, the tripods will last as long as
the ship, while rope rigging is affected by
wet and climate, and is a particularly heavy
item in the repairs of the steam reserve
supposed to be always ready for service."
Lord Clarence then pleaded the great
time required to plate turrets and constuct
the vast machinery; but Captain Coles
instantly shelled his adversary out
of this last citadel by showing that the
Messrs. Napier had in about ten months
built the Rolfe Krake, a vessel of twelve
hundred tons, with two turrets, for the
Danish government, who had already
ordered another. He also mentioned that
the Russian government were building
twelve turret ships at Newcastle, and one
with two three-hundred pounders, from his
special designs. As to the "enormous machinery,"
Captain Coles proved that it was
the simplest matter in the world, being
merely just the common winch, rack, and
pinion, similar to those used on railway
turn-tables. Still in vain did Captain Coles
waste more of his life, endeavouring to
induce these obstinate, unprogressive Admiralty
Lords to build a sea-going turret
ship; and, since the Shoeburyness targets
had then (1865) effectually resisted three-
hundred pound steel bolts projected by
sixty- pound charges of powder, to try the
Blakeley six-hundred and nine- hundred
pound guns on board a turret ship, no
twelve- ton (three- hundred pound guns)
even having then been worked on the
broadside principle at sea.

The Admiralty, compelled at last by the
irresistible force of public opinion to try
the turret ships, threw every obstacle in
the inventor's way, and made blundering
and disingenuous experiments. As they had
resisted the introduction of steam, so they
now resisted the introduction of turret
ships, and the system of a central fire.
They preferred their own costly cobbling,
letting other nations pass them in the race,
and silently steal away the naval glory of
England. How did the Admiralty at last
try the powers of sea-going turret ships?
Will it be believed? They absolutely took
a valuable three-decker with a rising floor,
and to make her specially safe and stable,
loaded her with no less than five iron towers;
they dispensed with the compensatory power
of masts, and sent to sea this mountain of
iron, this vessel laden with death, under
the command of that admirable officer,
Captain Sherard Osborn, against whom it
would almost appear, from this circumstance,
that my Lords must also have had a grudge.
The vessel, however, wonderful to
relate, did not sink after all, and
made what was thought by Captain Coles
and his friends a decidedly successful
voyage. The experiments then went on
faster, but were, to our mind from the first,
rather ominous, Captain Coles's clever and
useful idea wanting then, as it wants now,
many important modifications before a
safe sea-going turret ship can be made
practicable.

In October, 1865, Her Majesty's double-
turreted screw corvettes, Wivern and Scorpion,
were launched. The Times, very active
for the new vessels, spoke well of the experimental
cruises of these iron twins. They
had a rough baptism, being taken in dirty
weather into the terrible Race of Portland,
and laid for some time broadside on the
seas and the tideway. On or off the wind,