To enter upon the various stages of improvement induced by Individual talent would be foreign to our object : it is enough to remark that the names of Seppings, Ilayea, Symonds, and others, and especially of the distinguished officer Sir B. W. Walker, late the surveyor of the navy, but who now fills the newly created office of comptroller of the navy, will be remembered with respect by pos terity, as having each in his own method promoted, with national advantage, the subject of ship-building for warlike purposes to its present state. The extreme difficulties encountered by the latter during an extraordinary period of total revision of the navy, lay in the required alteration of ships which had been partly or totally built; the cutting of others to lengthen for the reception of screw-engines ; the various perplexing circumstances consequent upon failures or eyes unexpected successes in the scientific experiments of all maritime nations, required the energies and watchfulness of not merely the man of science, but the ready tact and penetration of the accomplished sailor and experienced and observant sea-officer. The exertions of the directing head have been worthy the honours decreed by the nation : while the apparently splendid line-of-battle ships of a neigh bouring nation, can scarcely fight their lower-deck guns in rough weather, the British nation now possesses in her royal navy the finest sea boats and floating batteries in the world.
We dwell thus upon the importance of these considerations because, when the paddle-ship was first thought likely to supplant altogether the sailing-ship, there arose a sense of uneasiness and doubt of our safety in the minds of those who were most intimate with the progress of affairs, from the consideration that the strength of the old fleet lay in its "broadsides," which, however, the introduction of the paddle nearly paralysed. Hence it became necessary to increase the calibre of the reduced number of guns which a paddle-ship could accommodate. But this, again, demanded total readjustment of the framework of the ship ; so that some, to be rendered effective as men-of-war, needed alteration at one end, some at the other, to insure a proper amount of buoyancy in compensation for novelties in the neW distribution of weight of metal, &c.
The question of naval architecture for warlike purposes was one of special anxiety in and about 1841 The continental threatenings of the year 1839 had deeply impressed the country with a conviction of insecurity, and the exertions of neighbouring nations stimulated an unusual activity in our arsenals. In that year the sailing properties of certain forms of hull were tested in the construction of five brigs, as 12-gun brigs, intended to compete with three of the 10-gun brigs of the old model, namely, the Pantaloon, Waterwitch, and the old Cruiser.
The new ones were as under, namely :— Only two other vessels of the gun-brig class were afterwards built, these were the Mariner and the Kingfisher. From the above period we may date an era memorable in the records of the English navy.
Various experiments then commenced became instrumental in forming a fleet, such as the country delighted to hail with acclamation, as it afterwards mustered at a grand naval review at Spithead in August, 1853. This was, however, but a splendid holiday display ; nor could the many thousands who beheld that most imposing national spectacle have suspected that before another year a naval armament of England would be led by our Queen in person towards the Baltic, and that her naval supremacy was once more to be put to the test of battle in a war with Russia; but, of the many thousands who waved and cheered this gallant fleet from our shores, some will not forget the one deep senti ment of anxiety, when reminded, on reflection, that, from novelties of armament and propulsion, naval war was then (as it would be now) an experiment.
The fleet of 1854 differed from those of former wars. It was not composed of similar materials, either as regards men or ships. In 1854, not only were men wanted to man the fleet, but those who did enter as able seamen were unaccustomed to the very improvements which science had introduced. The work of an engineer in those days could only, in the minds of so peculiar and isolated a race of beings as British sailors, be viewed in the light of innovation. A new round of duties seemed, in 1854, to have descended upon him, or to loom before him. Instead of a splendid fleet of sailing-ships, with which he had, in its details, become acquainted, and whose evolutions, depending upon the smartness of the crews, used to be governed by ouc set of naval rules, under which his experience had been matured, the fleets of the Baltic and Black Sea were composed of three distinct and separately managed classes of vessels; where, moreover, the sailing-ships, his fdrmer pride, took the lowest rank in point of efficiency, either in sailing or warfare.
In 1855, there were in the British navy 107 paddle-steamers, and 78 screws.
Steam, then, had in 1854 established its claims to the attention of our naval administration as a powerful auxiliary at sea. A few paddle steamers only had attended the Channel fleet of 1845. But, as that fleet passed outside the Nab Light, a long low corvette, of some 700 or 800 tons, was propelled by a force which showed the Rattler to have attained a speed exceeding that of all other vessels present. In her the screw had achieved a triumph ; had taken unquestionable prece dence over the paddle-wheel, and had established a means of propulsion that was soon to effect a mighty change in the naval forces of Great Britain. The apathy, real or otherwise, which might seem to have attached to the British naval executive through a long peace, and up to 1845, certainly from that year decreased. In 1845 alone, no less than 23 screw-steamers were added to the British fleet, and formed the nucleus of the enormous change to which our attention must be called before our dismissal of that branch of investigation which refers to what the naval force has been.