Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/225

 The Merrimac and Monitor. 219

department to reconsider the question, with a view to a smaller kind of vessel. In consequence of that, the Defense vessels were laid down. Those vessels were half the tonnage of the Warrior. He was not quite satisfied even with those vessels, as their plates, he thought, ought to be carried further round, and then vessels of the Resist- ance class were laid down. All these vessels were built by contract ; but it had been found impossible to build such vessels in a specific time. With regard to the armament of the vessels, the Admiralty, seeing what was coming, gave orders last summer to build three ships of upwards of six thousand tons each, that would carry any sized guns. They would have forty guns each, protected all round with plates. That made ten vessels built and building, five of which would be afloat and effective in the course of the present year. He had also, in the course of last year, ordered five ships to be cut down to carry thirty-two guns each, protected all round. These vessels would be four thousand horse-power, five of them would be com- pleted this year, giving ten iron ships completed this year. Siill he did not think our ports were sufficiently defended, and therefore he ordered a cupola-vessel on Captain Cole's plan. The experiments that were made in that case had been attended with the most satisfac- tory results. It was, first of all, found that the firing was much more rapid from the cupola than from the ordinary ship ; and it was after- wards ascertained that the cupola has an extraordinary power of resisting any fire directed against it. The test to which it had been subjected was such as hardly any vessel would have to undergo in an action. There had first been fired at it eight or ten 4O-pounders, then sixteen or twenty 68-pounders, and finally about forty 100 pound- ers, and yet the cupola sustained little or nc injury. Only one of its plates had been injured, and it was afterwards found that that plate was constructed of bad iron. Those experiments had been made last Autumn, but he had not thought it necessary to commence at once the construction of a vessel with a cupola ; he had delayed any action in the matter until the assembling of Parliament; and in the estimates a vote was inserted for the building of such a ship. That vote has been passed, and the construction of the vessel was to be commenced in the course of a few days. The length of that vessel would be about two hundred and filty feet; its tonnage would be a little over two thousand tons, and it would not draw twenty feet of water. He believed that it would be found to be a ship of a very effective description. It was to be an entirely new vessel, but he believed that the principle of its construction might be applied to