Since udged by the following circumstance. from the small size of the interior of the turret (the walls of which are two feet thick) there is no clear space of any extent behind the gun, as is the case with those at the side of a ship, stout beams of oak are fixed at the rear of each, against the wall of the turret, to act as buffers; and though every gun has gone through repeated trials, nearly two hundred rounds having been fired altogether, on only one of these beams is the very slightest dent visible. The Royal Sovereign's masts are three low wooden spars, without yards, looking more suitable for a schooner yacht than for a mighty ship of war; and though they may be useful at times in steadying her, or may perhaps assist her in beating off shore in the event of any accident happening to her screw, they are wholly different from the powerful iron tubular masts in which Captain Coles designed to spread a cloud of canvas half as large again as is usually carried by ships of her tonnage, and with which he would not have feared to undertake the longest voyage, to race with the speediest vessel, or to encounter the heaviest weather. The accommodation for the crew, at least for the officers, is perhaps rather more scanty than we are accustomed to see in a ship of the tonnage of the Royal Sovereign; but it must be remembered that, including marines, artillery, and engine officers, she carries only 300 men; and among her officers there are no midshipmen, an arrangement which, though it saves one mess-room, we should think of very doubtful policy, since there could hardly be a more useful school for the very youngest officers than would be afforded by the practical working of a vessel equipped on so novel a system. Even the captain's cabin is made out of what was originally the bread-room of the three decker, and is crowded by the wheel, for which no other place can be found, but which the captain has converted into a piece of ornamental furniture, painting on it Nelson's signal in letters of gold, thus proclaiming his recognition of that heroic principle as the rule of his own conduct, and inculcating obedience to it on others. Another decoration which the cabin contains may not be passed over, a pair of pictures of the Queen and her lamented husband, who took a judicious and clearsighted interest in Captain Coles's plan from its first announcement. They are the gift of her Majesty herself to Captain Osborn, as a testimony of her approval of his efforts to do that plan justice, and of the success which, as far as opportunity has been given him, has attended those efforts. The captain himself is a remarkable man, who has seen more service than perhaps any officer of his standing, who on all occasions has displayed the most brilliant professional skill and courage, and who combines with them no ordinary degree of scientific knowledge and acuteness as well as of literary attainment. He not only bore an active share in the search for the lamented Franklin and his comrades, but from him, while all in England were in a state of doubt and uncertainty, came by far the most accurate conjectures as to the course which Franklin had taken, and the region in which consequently the chief search should be made, that was at any time offered to the Admiralty. To him, as its commander, was chiefly owing the admirable success achieved by our squadron in the Sea of Azov, to which allusion has already been made. He it was who, having seen some of his earliest service in China under Sir W. Parker, revisited the same waters under the most distinguished of all the successors of that gallant officer, and, penetrating to Hankow (far beyond the utmost limits of the expedition of 1841) and returning in safety under difficulties which severely tested his seamanship, earned for himself so high a reputation that, when the Chinese government sought the aid of a European fleet against the Taeping rebels, it entrusted the command to him. The misunderstandings arising between the Mandarins and M. Lay, which ended in his laying down his command, added to his credit by giving him the opportunity of displaying a high degree of moral courage and promptitude of decision. Fortunately also for Captain Coles, his system, now placed fairly on its trial, thus obtained the aid of so consummate a master of every branch of his profession. Such a captain cannot have a bad crew; and the perfect state of discipline to which he has brought them cannot perhaps be better described than by saying that they can clear their ship for action, let fall the bulwarks, train the guns to any point required, load and dis-! charge them all in less than five minutes, and that afterwards, two minutes and fifty seconds is all the time they require to repeat the broadside, so that they can fire 21 broadsides in less than an hour; a result far surpassing anything that, under any other system, has been effected by a crew of 300 men, or of twice that number. In the middle of September the Royal Sove reign returned to harbour from Portland, where she had been undergoing a series of severe trials to test her capabilities as a sea-boat, and also the working of her guns and turrets in the open sea. In both points she has been found to work admirably. Her speed is, of course, not great; but she has made eight knots against a heavy sea and a stong head wind; and her extreme roll, even in double-reefed topsail breeze, is not more tha. has been experienced in some of our finest wooden vessels of the old time. While in the very roughest weather the turrets and guns have been found to work admirably; nor, though nearly two hundred rounds have been fired in every variety of weather and sea, has a single breeching been carried away, nor (a thing which might easily have happened when the heaviest guns ever yet put on board a ship were being worked on a wholly novel plan) has the most trifling hurt been sustained by a single man. The chief objects then which Captain Coles proposed to himself and promised to his countrymen,-greater rapidity and accuracy in shooting; greater, indeed complete protection to the crew; and greater economy in the construction, maintenance, and working of the ship, appears to have been successfully attained. The attainment of the first is established by the trials of which we have already spoken. The attainment of the second, at least until it is defeated by the production of guns so large as to crush through any armour under which a ship can float, is proved by the details which have been given above of the composition of her sides and her turrets, to be so far perfect as to be equal in every respect to that of any ship yet launched or designed, and to be superior to that of any except vessels of the Minotaur class, the only ones which carry plates of the same thickness, 5-inch, those of the Warrior class, the Royal Oak class, and the Achilles being all alike 4-inch. To even the strongest of these, the Minotaur, the Royal Sovereign is still superior in that most important point of having no port-holes, the Minotaur, like the Warrior, having 20 on a side, presenting collectively an opening of 260 square feet. Moreover, the crew of the Royal Sovereign have an additional protection in the smallness of the target which their ship presents to the enemy. She is 240 feet long, and, as we have said before, 8 feet out of the water, or, including the rise in her deck, 9 feet 6 inches, the whole area therefore which she presents to the aim of an enemy, including her four turrets, is one of 2668 square feet. The Warrior has a length of 380 feet, and her gunwale is 22 feet out of the water, she therefore affords a mark of 8360 feet, while we must add, as a source of danger to her men,the opening of 260 square feet of porthole. How undeniably the third object, cheapness in construction and working, is arrived at, is proved by the Parliamentary returns. As she is a converted ship it is impossible to state with precision the cost of the Royal Sovereign: but that of the Prince Albert is fixed at £157,303, an amount which would be augmented by less than £10,000 if she were built as a sea-going ship with somewhat increased tonnage, and with the masts to fit her for a long voyage, while the cost of the Warrior is given in the Parliamentary returns as having amounted to no less than 360,9951. The economy in maintaining and working her is equally established by a comparison of the number of her crew with that of the Warrior, the Royal Sovereign having, as has already been said, 300 men only of every class and rank; while the crew of the Warrior, reckoned in the same manner, exceeds 800; nor, leaving out of the question the saving of money, would it be a trifling advantage in the event of war breaking out suddenly, and its becoming requisite to equip a fleet in haste, to be able to man two ships completely with fewer men than would otherwise be required for one. The Royal Sovereign, as we have said, is not a sea-going ship, but Captain Coles earnestly desired to make her such, and not only believes that there is nothing in his plan of construction nor in the disposition of weight on board such a ship calculated in the least to render her unfit for long voyages, but he even maintains that his system is especially suited for ships to fight in the open sea, since guns placed in the centre of the ship are less likely to be disabled by its roll in a heavy sea than guns on a broadside, where it is sometimes necessary to close the portholes, the guns even of the Warrior, though unusually high above the water, being six inches nearer to it than the guns of the Royal Sovereign. To which argument, it may perhaps be added, that no other kind of ship gives room for availing ourselves of those improvements in artillery which are now proceeding at so rapid a pace. Whatever may be the size to which guns may eventually be carried, none can be made so large or so heavy that, if we believe Captain Coles, a turret ship cannot receive and work them, while it is not clear that our gun makers have not already produced pieces too large to be placed at the side of a ship at all events it is certain that even on board the Minotaur, a ship exceeding the Royal Sovereign in size by nearly 3000 tons, it is not contemplated to place any gun of more than 110lbs. calibre; though against 5 inch plates, a ball from such a gun would be almost impotent. Moreover, though we have as yet taken no steps to test this portion of Captain Coles's assertions, other nations have had sea-going ships built entirely on his plan; and the complete success achieved by the Danish Rolf-krake, in her action with a very superior force has of course stimulated the desire to possess vessels like her. Another, the Smirch, has been already sent from this country to Russia, and more than one of our private yards are building similar or larger vessels on the same plan for one or other of the foreign powers which may some day use them against ourselves. That Captain Coles's plan did not at first find favour with the present Board of Admiralty is so notorious, and the step which has been unexpectedly taken, since this article was commenced, of removing the Royal Sovereign into the steam reserve, seems so strange, that many, and especially naval men, have inferred from it that the complete success achieved by this ship in all the trials that she has as yet had the opportunity of making, has only strengthened the disinclination of the Board to allow that success to be more fully established by a continuance of her experiments, lest they should at last be compelled to give the plan the still further trial of allowing Captain Coles to build a ship wholly in accordance with his own views, without the interference of any civil constructor. But such a course would be so shameful that, it cannot, we are convinced, be truly imputed to any part of a British Ministry. It is probable rather that, looking on the justice of Captain Coles's views to be as completely established as it was possible for a vessel of the limited capabilities of the Royal Sovereign to establish them, and remembering that the fact of those capabilities being limited is owing not to any imperfection in Captain Coles's plan, but to the circumstance of others having been admitted to interfere with and vary the details of that plan, the Board now considers that Captain Coles is entitled,-it would be more correct to say, that the country is entitled,-to have these views tested more completely in a sea-going vessel, and that therefore they are about to entrust him with the construction of such a ship, as the only method of finally deciding the question at issue between guns in turrets and guns in broadsides: a question which in the present critical state of Europe admits of no postpone ment, and of which it would be neither creditable nor safe for us to leave the solution to other nations, perhaps at our own expense. CHARLES WOLFE. TO THE EDITOR OF "ONCE A WEEK. "" SIR, I have no doubt that the readers of your journal have been as much interested as I have been in perusing your recent notice* of the Rev. Charles Wolfe, and I have thought, * See p. 501. therefore, that the following additional facts may not be unacceptable. 66 On the north-east coast of Ireland lies Newry, a sea-port of some importance, and my own native place. One of my father's most intimate friends in that town was a Doctor Stuart, pretty generally known (in that quarter of Ireland at least) as the author of a History of the City of Armagh," and more widely, as the writer of "The Protestant Layman. At the time of my father's acquaintance with this gentleman, he (Doctor Stuart) was the editor of the Newry Commercial Telegraph, a newspaper then published three times a week, and still in existence. In this paper the beautiful "Ode on the Burial of Sir John Moore was first published. I had this from my father's lips; but afterwards, in looking through the Penny Cyclopædia under the name of "Charles Wolfe," I found his words fully confirmed. My And now occurs a curious matter in connection with these celebrated verses. father told me that once when in company with Doctor Stuart and some other gentlemen, shortly after the publication of Wolfe's ode, the conversation naturally turned on the noble lines that had just appeared in the Telegraph. The doctor on that occasion stated that he found the verses in the street of the tour. I have repeatedly heard my father say that he did not credit this statement, nor, I fancy, did any one who heard it made. It was generally felt that the doctor had some motive for concealing the source whence the lines came into his possession. The ode appeared in the Telegraph anonymously, and was then claimed by a Scotchman. Stuart, in an article, sharply rebuked the pretender, who did not dare to reply. From this arises the presumption—perhaps not sufficiently just-that the editor knew the author's name, or at least something of the real author; that the lines had been sent to Stuart by some friend of Wolfe after their rejection by "the periodical" to which Mr. Gibson has alluded, and that the story of the finding in the street was a way of avoiding further questioning about a writer who preferred remaining incognito. About three or four years ago I happened to be in Dublin with some fellow-students, and among other places of interest we visited St. Patrick's Cathedral: there my eye fell on a plain marble tablet, inscribed with these words, which I copied at the time : IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE REV. CHARLES WOLFE, LATE CURATE OF DONOUGHMORE, CO. TYRONE, Whose earthly course closed Feb. 21, 1823. Rich in the treasures of Science and Literature, Him who gave them. Even so them also who sleep in Jesus 1 Thess. iv. 14. Captain Medwin, alluding to Lord Byron's reading of the "Ode on the Burial of Sir John Moore," says (as has already been noticed by Mr. Gibson), "The feeling with which he recited these admirable stanzas I shall never forget." And it is the remembrance of the expressive beauty with which a loved parent -now no more-used to clothe these "admirable stanzas," as he read them in the midst of us when we were children, that has given them a place in my heart of hearts, fondly endeared to me the name of Charles Wolfe, and chiefly induced me to trouble you with this letter. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, RUBENS IN THE CLOISTER. FROM pallid morn until the drowsy noon Than this weak hand could clasp. So one grey morn A passion seized me, and I wildly swore And trampled in the dust my summer's toil, Then threw myself upon my little couch And wept in vague remorse and throbbing pain. I did sore penance all that weary day And through the night; the while with tears I prayed This did I purpose: then with secret care Of happiness desired and reached. So I I turned and looked It was my comfort day by day; therein To see if such a line were truly straight. I turned from them: they knew not me nor mine: Then strangers came the prior was polite- Whereat they looked, and smiled, and said 'twas fine, 'Twas wondrous fine, the convent should be famed ! I heard them all, yet heeded none. To me My picture offered calm content, and I My poor and shattered life-a worthless thing A sunset drowned in rainy mist of tears. Among the rest one day an artist came,- I thought him just like others, nor did care To yield me time for study and for work. |