Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/585

570 udgedjudged [sic] by the following circumstance. Since 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 discharge 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 Sovereign 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;