The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-03 00:00:00

LA GLOIRE.

Mr. Scott Russell, in a letter to the Times, says :
The letter of Mr. Hussey Vivian contains so much
accurate information and so much sound opinion on
the subject of the iron-coated ships that it is quite
necessary that some errors, both in fact and opinion,
should be at once set right before the authority of
his name shall give them currency or practical
effect. I have, therefore, felt it to be my duty to
ask space for a second short letter upon the subject.
On some points Mr. Hussey Vivian's personal
observation corroborates the information I gave you
in my former letter. The Gloire is " built of
wood," is in external appearance a large frigate, or
rather an exaggerated corvette, carrying her arma-
ment on a single covered deck ; and she is of
" stronger scantling than usual ;" because, as I
informed you, she is built on the type of the French
90-gun ships Napoleon and Algesiras, only with this
change, that the weight of the iron plates is substi-
tuted for the upper decks, armament, heavy masts,
and rigging, all of which have been removed. For
practical purposes, we may.consider her as a huge
covered corvette, of 30 to 40 guns, with a nominal
tonnage of ' 3,000, and an actual displacement of
between 5,000 and 6,000 tons. I need not add that
this tonnage and displacement are greater than
many of our ships of the line.
Her dimensions—which Mr. Vivian could not
learn—are about 250 feet long and 55 feet beam.
I am glad to find that the information which he has
collected regarding the actual performance of the
ship corroborates that which I communicated to
you in regard to her speed and performance at sea
—" She behaves well, and her speed all agree in

stating at 13 knots."
The remarlc that. she "laboured somewhat in
very heavy weather" will, I am sure, be considered I
a high compliment to the builder and the ship by
all who have read the excellent account of your
correspondent of the performance of the Hero under
similar circumstances.
In the following points I beg to correct Mr.
Hussey Vivian's statement :—Her breadth of beam
is not " carried very far forward." Her bow is very
fine, especially under water, where, of course, he
had no means of observation. Her stern is not
" sharper than her bow," but the overhanging part
of the stern above water is carried out to an angle
instead of ending in an elliptical line as usual, so
that it is more like a clipper " bow than a stern,"
and I entirely agree with him in one advantage
derived from this shape, that it prevents a raking
fire from aft : but he has not mentioned that it
renders the fire of the usual stern guns in a line
with the keel impossible. Her iron plates are not
" 6 in.," but exactly 41 English in. thick, like ours ;
and the iron is of no " peculiar quality" except that
it is excellent forged iron. When Mr. Hussey
Vivian saw her, her ports were ‘.‘ 8 feat out of the
water," and her plates " extend to 8 feet below."
This would give a breadth of plating under the
ports larger than the fact.
The speed of the ship is, I agree with Mr. Vivian,
partly owing to the very judicious and moderate
rig which has been given to her, and of which he
so, well states the advantages ; but the speed is also
owing to a very judicious form of fine lines at the
bow and stern, and to an arrangement of the screw
very different from that which is adopted in our
ships, and much better suited to this special purpose.
In the manly and fearless statement which Mr.
Hussey Vivian has given of his opinion, that the
" fine ships around her were as useless in her pre-
sence as old flint muskets in presence of the arms of
the present day," he has done the public an im-
portant service. A large number of persons, whose
position gives weight to their opinion, are assidu-
ously trying to make believe very much that the
old ships are, after all, not so bad as they are called
and that in the hands of British sailors they illdo wonders.
I believe with them that British sailors ill
.not
only, as heretofore, do wonders, but..w,
unjust
" impossibilities." But surely it would iellasachieve
in the British public to ask Jackb to
tt
battery
as it would
gyht a wooden
ship of the line against an ironfiea
Id with flint mus-
be to send our army into the
kets. An iron ship of superior
esapoecd, heavy battery,
choose her own
and fair sea-going qualities s
and
time and place of en gagembiens and is an overmatch
of equal rank.
for half a dozen woodenims
important conclusion which
But there is anothern
n adopt. That the Ad-
I hope the public waxse
toot
build ships of the old
miralty should " ease
class" would be undoubtedly common sense ; but if,
by the recommendations of the last paragraph, we
are to understand that they are not to proceed as
rapidly as
possible with the construction of iron
ships of " unheard-of iron scantling, but are to
take to making imitations of the Gloire in wood,
then his advice is the most dangerous that gould be
given. •
Ours is a country of iron—France is not ; and
yet the French Admiralty are wise enough to em-
ploy themselves with all their energy in preparing
to build iron ships with those very unheard-of
iron scantlings. If we followed this advice we
should be making a poor imitation of a temporary
expedient which the French Admiralty resolved on
two or three years, when they had no alternative.
There is nothing more certain than that a wooden
ship of great length, of fine form for speed, coated
with heavy plates of iron and propelled by engines
of enormous power, could not possess either the
requisite strength nor durability. These qualities
we know that iron alone can give, and it is re-
markable that in the whole mercantile fleet of
Britain there does not exist a single ship of 'arse
size and high speed that is built of wood:
would
therefore, what Mr. Vivian recommendswonaaDere
to, go bickwards, at the moment the French
pushing rapidly forwards.