The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-30 00:00:00

sertion.

I may preface my observations by stating that
being accidentally at Toulon a weekago, and hearing
that La Gloire was in the roads, I went alongside
and sent my card to the commander affixing to my
name the words " Membre du Parlement Anglais."
I received a mere verbal message that no one was
allowed to see the frigate. This restriction is, I
believe, unusual is France, and it'may therefore be
assumed that La Gloire is regarded as too novel and
valuable a weapqa to be wilfully thrown open for
imitation.
M description must consequently be limited to
'ate externals of the frigate and to the details which
I gleaned from various sources, more or less accu-
rate. La Gloire carries 36 broadside guns, though
pierced for 40 ; she is said also to carry four heavy
, guns on deck ; her broadside guns are all rifled ;
her ports I judge to be about eight feet out of
water; she has a bowsprit and three masts, strictly
fore and aft rigged, although she can set a large
square sail on her foremast ; her spars are not much,
if' at all, larger in proportion than those of an or-
dinary passenger steamer ; she has apparently a
flush deck, with, I was informed, a shot•proof house
on the after part for the captain. At present she
is probably three feet by the stern, judging from
her water line ; she is said to draw five metres, or
about 16 feet. Her cutwater, which is stated to
be 50 centimetres (equal to 1 foot 71 inches) thick,
recedes from the water line upwards, the lower
portion being from 2 to 3 feet in advance of the
upper. Her breadth of beam is carried very far
forward, giving an appearance of weight and bluff-
ness to her bow, which however may be more due
to the want of a few extra feet of cutwater than to
an actual absence of fine lines. Her bow overhangs,
but very slightly, it at all ; her stern is neither
round nor square, but sharper than her bow, pre-
senting finer lines, and with a very considerable
flare or overhang. She has a set-off at the water-
line, some 3 or 4 inches deep, such as ships of
war generally have just below their ports. Her
sides have about the inclination in wards usual in
men-of-war. Her plates, I was informed, arc 15
centimetres (about six English inches) thick ; those
forming the first row above the water-line are about
5 feet long by 2 feet 9 inches wide ; above these are
two rows of plates, about 4 feet lorg and 1 foot
wide ; above these again, the larger plates. The iron
used in their manufacture is stated to be of a very
superior description ' • one extensive works, near St.
Etienne, is engaged almost exclusively in their man u-
facture. The plates are said to extend about 2-1-
metres, or say 8 feet, below her water-line ; she is
coppered from that point to her keel. I was informed
that her engines are of 1,000 horse-power. Her
speed all agree in stating at 13 knots. She is con-
stantly sent to sea, and is reported to behave well
though labouring somewhat in very heavy weather.
Upon one occasion she was in a gale during which a
first-class frigate lost all her quarter boats. Her
tonnage and dimensions I could not learn. She is
decidedly not a very large vessel, but little if at all
larger than modern frigates of her class. Perhaps
the most important point remains still to be noticed.
La Gloire is not an iron ship ; she is built of wood,
doubtless of stronger scantling than usual, but still
she is a wooden ship, built in in a Government dock-
yard by the ordinary shipwrights and of the mate-
rials at hand. She was plated in a dry dock after
she was launched, and it would not therefore seem
that any extraordinary expense could have been
incurred in her construction. A sister ship is now
building at Toulon. Her sides are lined with men
as thickly as they can work. Two frigates of the
old stamp stand half finished and neglected hard
by. At least I could not see one man at work on
them.

It would appear from the foregoing det tils that
many very important objects have been attained in
La Gloire. In spite of her artnourpher speed is
higher than that of most men of war, an element in
itself of enormous power. I have no desire to
theorise on the means by which this high speed may
have been attained, but I may remark that a por-
tion of it may be due to the absence of lofty masts
and heavy rigging, to the rapid passage of which
the air must offer very considerable resistance.. In-
deed, we know what speed a ship scudding under
bare poles will attain, and the converse must he
equally true, though in a less degree. Again, the
lightness of her rig would necessitate the presence
of but few men on deck during action, and if shot
away there would be little to foul the screw. I
imagine, nevertheless, that she could show canvas
enough to give her steerage way when cruising
with her fires banked up, or to enable her to lie to
in heavy weather. The projection of her cut water
at, and probably below, the water-line would cause
her to crush in the sides of an adversary at the
most dangerous point, and the immense strength
given to the eutwater shows that this mode of
attack is contemplated. The shape of her .stern
would make it exceedingly difficult to rake her,
while it enables her to steam astern nearly as fast
as ahead. She is protected as far below the water-
line as a shot could well penetrate or as she could
expose while rolling ; below this she is coppered,
and thus the disadvantage of fouling, and conse-
quent loss of speed, is avoided. lifer guns are all
rifled, and here I may say that I was informed that
all guns now served out lbr active use in the French
navy aro rifted • I myself saw several hundred
yards of conical shot for rifled guns piled about
four feet high, and the same width, and I was told
that there are 150,000 conical shot for rifled guns
in the arsenal at Toulon alone. I saw no round.
shot. The bore of these guns is about seven Eng-
lish inches ; they are of the calibre of the old
French 301 b. round shot; they have three grooves
about two inches wide and 3.l6ths deep ; the fore
part of the shot is hollow, the hind part solid; they
weigh 25 kilogrammes, equal to about 55 English
pounds; they have one projection for each groove,
partly of iron, partly of lead.
Having thus endeavoured to explain the various
points which seemed to me to be worthy of note, and
the bearing:they appear to have upon this important
subject, I may perhaps be permitted to say a few
words on the general question. The impression left
on my mind, after an attentive comparison of this
formidable vessel with the fine ships lying at anchor
around her, was that they were as useless in her
presence as old flint muskets in presence of the
arms of the present day. It may be true that we
have yet to learn the effect of a concentrated broad-
side at short range on iron armour ; it may be true
that Mr. Whitworth's gun and projectile can under
favourable conditions pierce such armour as that of
La Gloire ; but would she allow the concentrated
broadside at short range ? Would she place herself
in the favourable position for Mr. Whitworth's
operations ? Her speed is superior to almost every
ship in our navy, and she could, therefore, choobe
and maintain whatever distance she pleased from
her adversary. That distance would be the point
at which hia shot would rattle harmlessly against
her armour, while she would throw molten iron
into his unprotected sides. What seamanship,
what gallantry could avail against such odds ?
The French have four such vessels already afloat;
one, the Normandie, I am told, is a two-decker.
They are said to have 10 others in rapid progress,
several of which are in an advanced state. Before
many months are over they will have between 400
and 500 guns behind iron walls, and this will have
been achieved, not by extravagant experiments in
unheard-of iron scantlings, paid for at the rates ,
which attach to all new and unusual constructions,
but simply by ceasing to build ships of the old class
and by employing the resources of their own dock-
yards in the construction of ships adapted to the
exigencies of modern warfare. It is, indeed,
earnestly to be desired that our Government may
be content to press forward in the same direction,
to cease from the construction of ships which we
may reasonably fear will prove hereafter to be
useless, and that they may without further delay
avail themselves of the resources at their command
as the French have done. We should thus be saved
from a repetition of the discreditable condition to
which our navy was nit long since reduced, and from
the extraordinary additional outlays which appear
to be impending over us.

VIOLENT STOIiM.--AVEXFORD, Tuesday Morn-
ing.--Strong gales of wind prevailed here during the early
part of last week, which gradually increased in violence as
the week proceeded, until on Saturday evening it reached
a perfect hurricane. The waves were dashing over the
quays, and large quantities of sea wreck were thrown over
the street for nearly 20 yards. On Sunday it was, if pos-
sible, worse than on Saturday evening. About 3or 4
o'clock in the afternoon a messenger came into Wexford
from Blackwater, at full speed, with the intelligence that
a large vessel was off the shore in a dangerous state, and
it was feared she would run ashore. The inspector
hero immediately proceeded to the spot, when he found
the vessel had fortunately got out of danger, and had
proceeded on her journey. On Monday afternoon, about the
same hour, another messenger came into town with the in-
telligence that a large vessel, name unknown, had run
ashore on the Blackwater Bank, only a few yards distant
from where the unfortunate Pomona foundered about a year
ago. The messenger stated that before he left three of the
rge
crew had taken to one of the boats, in the hope of landing in
wreck Lloyd's
at
safety, but when a few yards from the shore their boat was
BsuwanaPod, and the whole three were buried la the boiling
Mr. Coghian, of her Majesty's Customs hero, and
agent for this district, proceeded to the scene of the
night, but had not returned when the post left.
There are
, many rumours, but none of them founded on
a good foundation. It is to be feared, however, that itll
kande of the wartimete /easel We been lot.