Page:The New Centurion - Eastwick - 1895.pdf/10

Rh article was published in the 'Contemporary Review' of last September, which evoked the not unnatural query what fighting with automatic weapons would be like. In order to answer this question, the first thing to be done was to put some limit on the inquiry; otherwise any attempt to answer it would be sure to end in describing one of those mythical contests between an unheard-of ironclad and an equally unheard-of enemy of which we have too many already, and from which nothing ever has been learnt or ever will be. And the best mode of confining the inquiry within some definite limits seemed to be to take some one modern ship of acknowledged excellence, to re-arm her with the proposed weapons, and then to imagine her engaged with other ships equally modern, but of various types. This method the writer has attempted to pursue in the following pages, which he puts forward in the hope that they may meet with the indulgence of the reader.

It only remains to apologise to all interested in the various ships mentioned for the liberties taken with their names, and above all to the captain and officers of H.M.S. Centurion and to the Chief Constructor by whom she was designed.