under sail, the result was equally good.
They both took in seas liberally over their
low decks amidship, but their lofty bows
(with raised fore-topgallant forecastles)
kept them dry when their heads could be
kept to the seas. No water entered the
turrets. The tripod masts stood bravely.
There was not a crack or any starting of the
paint at the joints of the turret plates. The
Scorpion maintained the whole time a
consistent three-quarters of a knot an hour
in excess of the Wivern's rate of going;
but then this could hardly be wondered at,
since the Wivern, having no guns ready,
carried one hundred and eighty tons of iron
ballast in her turrets. They both made
good snap-shot practice at casks from
their twelve-ton smooth bore one hundred
and fifty pounders, with the wind in the
Channel blowing from the south, and a heavy
rolling sea setting in. Each vessel steered
well as long as the screw was revolving, but
under sail alone they steered wildly; "anywhere"
as the men said; but this the Coles
party said could be put right by using
Grimths's two-bladed screws. The vessels
were tested for fourteen days in stormy
weather in all winds from the strongest
Channel gale, and with the wind never less
than at " a force of seven," and of all places
in the world off the dreaded Head of Portland."
Good vessels under steam or sail,"
cried their abettors, patting the iron twins
on the back, " but ill ventilated, damp
between decks, and altogether uncomfortable
to both officers and men, evils, however,
which can be corrected, and might be
expected of vessels not originally built for
the royal navy."

In the mean time, Captain Coles, doting
more and more on his ugly duck, as it
began to develop into a swan, a rara avis,
too, and without parallel, began to daily
discover in it fresh beauties. He contended,
with Commodore Rogers, of the
American navy, that the turret ships or
monitors, carrying their guns near the
centres of motion, and supported by keels
and keelsons, upborne by the depth of
water, and carried by the whole strength
of the hulls, would bear heavier guns than
the old broadside ships could carry out on
their ribs. He also declared, and with
some justice, that the turret embrasures,
quite filled up by the muzzles of the large
guns, were safer for the workers than the
open and numerous portholes of the broadside
ships ever could be. The Daily News,
always a generous and enlightened paper,
spoke warmly of some of Captain Coles's
new vessels. The Royal Sovereign had
worked her double-barrelled turret in a
sea-way rolling twenty-two degrees, where
the guns of the old ironclads would only
have fired in the sea, even if they had
dared to open their ports. The same
vessel had made an easy and quick passage
back from Cherbourg. Shame, then, on
the Admiralty, said this paper, that hitherto
has only cut down and adapted the Royal
Sovereign, and been three years converting
the Prince Albert.

This same year Captain Coles replied to
thirty-one objections started by a committee
that sat upon his system. This committee,
however, had already allowed publicly
that the turret was the most efficient
mode of carrying and working very
heavy guns in a sea-way; that it afforded
a steadier platform; that the turret gun
was higher out of the water; that it could
be fought longer and more efficiently than
when mounted in broadside; that the
extent to which a turret gun could be
trained was limited only by the obstructions;
that it had great rapidity of fire,
and was less liable to.be interrupted by
smoke; that a turret gun was better
protection for the men; and that in an intricate
channel, or up a winding river, the turret
system gave a greater facility of keeping
guns bearing on the enemy while following
the course of the channel. Then, at last,
reluctantly, but still quibbling and postponing,
"My Lords" agreed—to build?
Oh, no—but to think over a design of a
sea-going two-turret ship, when such
design should be prepared and submitted to
the controller's department.

But while pointing out this disgraceful
sequence of opposition to improvement by
officials who squandered public money on
a thousand ridiculous caprices, let us do
justice to Mr. Reed. He, from the first,
while admitting all the proved advantages
of the monitor system, though a personal
opponent of Captain Coles, who had
ruffled his feathers in many a correspondence,
gravely, boldly, and thoughtfully
denounced the dangers of all sea-going
turret ships as yet invented. His work on
Iron-clad Ships bears the date of 1869.
In an excellent though severe chapter on
Turret Ships, Mr. Reed uses these strong
but only too prophetic words, which, no
doubt, brought the hot blood into the
cheeks of poor Captain Coles when he read
them, only a few short months ago.

"My opinion is," says this great, though,
perhaps, somewhat prejudiced authority—