The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-01 00:00:00

LONDON,' WED ES DAY EVENING, AUGI

possesses, at the present hour, giving their designers and
the years when built :

Name of Ship.
dl •
O; • .).; -7
• • a B
—o o
>0 $) T.: , .
, 0
Fv•
- - - - -
Ft. in. Ft. in. Ft. in Ft. In. Ft. in. Ft. in. Ft. in:
Length between
thepfrpendiculars 186 0 205 6 115 0 204 2 240 6 215 6 235 0
Length of keel for
tonnage •• ..... . 153 lj 170 6 101 3 166 6 202 0 106 4 203 5
Breadth, extreme 51 61 54 8 21 3 60 04 60 0 61 21 50
Brdth. for toonag, .. 21 0 59
,21 59 2 60 41 .:49. 6
Breadth, moulded •• •• 58. 4 59 61 48 8
Depth in 21 6 23 2 11 11 23 9 24 8 ..25 10 .17
Burden in tons.... 2160 2694 238 3104 3760 4000 .2650
. ..C. now
In what year built 1765 1808 1822 18 39 1853 1855 build-
L ing
Horse p.)wer .• 80 .. 700 800 600

reserved for the lips of Royalty to name, or christen,
as it is called, these floating fortresses; and they expect
from the Royal hand the signal which, as it were, gives
them their ocean life. Sovereigns of other times had
their great deeds. They built and named pyramids
.which still challenge the wonder and curiosity of man-
'kind. They founded cathedrals with aisles like forest
'avenues, and spires that touch the .skies; they built
churches upon churches, and churches side by side, one
still larger than another, and so large at left thatahey
will never be finished, and to this degenerate age only
record the magnificent ideas of our forefathers. "There
we're giants- in those days." But who that was present
at the Naval Review of 1853 will deny that there are
`giants in these days also ? We are waging a war of
Titans. Just now, for the instant, indeed, peace seems
tohe gaining upon war, for there is a passenger ship
building in the Isle of Dogs that would take the Marl-
lioraugh on deck, and only sink two or three feet with
its bui den. But wait a little. In a few years we shall
hav-e a man-of-war—then several men-of-war—then a
whole fleet—on the scale of Mr. Scott Russell's main-
miith ship. It is proper to the,dignity of the British
aation that we should do so ; and, as we are geographi
cally prevented from extending our frontier on land, it
is but natural we should add as much as we can of the
sea, at least of that portion of the sea which is repre-
sented for the time by the deck of a man-of-war.
But, amid all these honourable aspirations for national
grandeur, and this swollen, and still swelling magnifi-
cence,, a certain thought will obtrude uninvited. So
leng,rai 'we were at peace, and so long as theie huge
castles really frowned upon the ocean to some purpose and
kepft he world in awe, there was no reason why we should
not go on' building ships bigger and bigger continu-
ally; and particularly when the usual deatination of the
ship Was a muddy berth high up Portsmouth harbour,
or some other asylum far idle and eventually invalid
men-of--war. We ~ahould not be far off the mark; if we
were to say that alocalt a hundred ships of-the-line have
never been used at ail, but have rotted in ordinary, from
the day of their hssatiktirstO that which.' saw them sold for
" old stores," ant bralC-im up by some ship-knacker.
But, Ass ii is bet* that .4 cuan.ol-war, as well as any,
oth4. weapon, sliOuld not le&r.o4;sie_will waste no vain
etrtta;.,,jaktffelltitiligt So many iuceessive monarchs of
"the-deep, after lives of inglorious ease, have been gathered
to the sepulchre of their fathers. But a change has
come over the scene, and we are now in a state which
may be said to have been wholly unanticipated by the
builders of our fleets—a state of war. What is more, we
are at war with a naval Power,—with a Power which
arrogates to itself the dominion of two great inland seas
and threatens a third—the third being that sea, only less
than ocean, to the possession of which the ancients
justly assigned the dominion of the world. Russia is
pushing her fleets from north and south towards the
Gates of Hercules, and embraces the Old World. This
same Russia has insulted us in the very tenderest point ;
she has obtained our exclusion from the Euxine, she has
destroyed, under our eyes, as it were, the fleet of our
ally ; she has proclaimed that wooden walls are no match
for granite ; she has defied not only us, not only our de-
crepit and semi-barbarous ally, but our great neighbour,
more than our equal in military resources, and only not
our equal in naval power. Here, then, is the very proof
and occasion of our vast naval artnoury. Here is the
destined enemy for whom our floating castles were
reared. Here is the peril against which our pro-
vident forefathers warned us and prepared us
in time. Open the gates of the ocean, out with
these demigods, let them go forth in solemn pro-
cession and do their stern errand. They have gone
forth ; they have stalked and are still stalking over the
surface of the ocean. They cover seas, they spread from
shore to shore, they create cities on the waves ; they
give to watery wastes " a local habitation and a name."
The Black Sea and the Baltic are full of our fleets, and,
not only ours, but the French as well, besides myriads
of vulgar craft ministering to their wants. They have
done this now for two years. Well, what have they
done ? They have retained their barren empire over
the ocean. The ocean was theirs, and it must be said
they have not yet been deprived of it. Bedouins of the
trackless deep, their reign is undisputed. They march
to and fro ; like the rude champion of the Philistine host,
they menace and provoke. Were all the earth sea, it is
manifest we are its lords. But there is the very diffi-
culty. The earth is not all sea. There is land, with its
natural-defences, its shore,, its shoals, its shallows, its
creeks, and all that fringe of neither sea nor land. There
our dominion ends. The Titans are baffled, not by Jove's
thunder, not by incumbent .11.1tna, bit by treacherous
mud and shifting sands.
Does not common sense—the common sense tbat go-
verns the world,—common sense that makes the con-
queror,—common sense that gives life to men and
nations,—does not that sacred gift itself tell us that now
is the time to stop building these long-cheriohed extrava-
gances I Granting that they have their use, and that it
is still 'necessary to assert the dominion of the ocean,
have we not enough of them, and more than enongh of
them, for the purpose ? Have we not four, or even ten
times enough, to dispose of the Russian fleet, if it should
ever show itself ? Of course, if we could do everything,
we might as well do everything. But we cannot do
everything. In sober truth, we want craft for the
"fringe,"—that which is neither sea nor land. We want
a whole fleet of gun-boats, and other apparatus directly
suited to the work to be done. Rich ss we fancy
ourselves, we want " small change" in our fleet. We
cannot do both together ; we may, perhaps, have the
money ; we may, perhaps, have the' matorial, but we
have not the men. The naval strength of the country is
absorbed, shipwrecked, in these enormous tessels, which
only ride amid seas, and meet no foe but the elements.
Such a ship as that which refused to be launched yester-
day requires a crew equal to all the adult population of
a considerable town, and costs the maintenance of a
town. Imprison a thousand or twelve hundred men in
a floating castle, and at the end of the year they will
not have done anything in this war worth their salt.
Set them free, and distribute them in a flotilla of gun-
boats, arid they may do something. Why, on Sir
Charles Napier's authority, it takes a maple of seasons
to teach a fleet the very first elements of naval warfare,
such as the use of signals. If it's the Atlantic that is in
question, well and good ; let us have fleets toceovperrouitd,
and signal across from Gibraltar to the Gulf of Mexico.
Let us have ships that the Atlantic itself tray be
to bear. But it is not the Atlantic, it is not the Medi-
terranean, it is hardly even the Baltic of the Black Sea
that is the arena of this struggle. The quarrel is to be
fought out in havens, and creeks, and narrow winding
channels, in rock-strewn pools and tideless shallows.
Stop every big ship ; set free every ship carpenter,
every smith, every forge, every furnace in the Queen's
dockyards, or in any workshop now employed by her.
Transfer them at once to that smaller craft without
which it is quite evident we cannot undertake offen-
sive operations—that is to say, without which we can-
not carry on the war. We ,fear it is too late to expect
anything this year. Next year let us meet Russia on
her own amphibious domain, We cannot doubt the
final issue of the struggle ; only let us not be our own
worst enemies, by wasting our strength and diverting
all our resources in unprofitable demonstrations.