The Sun.
London, England, 1858-04-30 00:00:00

FLOATING BATTBRIES.

TO THE EDITOR vF
THE SUN.
The correspondent of the Times is in error to imagine
that the floating batteries are the Emperor's invention.
During my stay i❑ Sheffield, i❑ 1835, I used to visit
two of my countrymen, whom I have succeeded to place
in one of the most renowned steel manufactories. Seve-
ral times Mr. E. Vickers was kind enough to take me
all over his establishment, and once my attention was
attracted to the enormous power with which certain im-
mense hammers came on steel. It was then that I con-
ceived the idea that a series of steel sheets, say 5 inches
in thickness, could withstand the effect of any pro-
jectile then•io use. A few days afterwards I ascertained,
beyond doubt, bs various means, too long to be de-
scribed here, that such was really the case. I beg to re-
mind your civilian readers, with reference to this subject,
that the then ordinary system of artillery, including the
naval one, did not comprise heavier ordnance than
48-pounders, and 8-inch mortars.
La paix a tout prix beine at that epoch the foundation
of the European policy, I had nothing better to do than
to enter my discovery into my journal, and to corvmu-
nicate it a- a mere curiosity to my friend Captain Ban-
semer. But when the Wester❑ Powers proclaimed
war against Russia, imagining that they were really in
earnest, and consequently that they would have to attack
not Cronstadt, nor Sebastopol, but Riga and o her mari-
time establishments, in order to secure a basis of operation
for their armies about to act on the most vulnerable por-
tion of Russia, I hastened to embody my former
discovery ieto a memorandum for the British Govern-
ment (of which I am a naturalised subject), and I trans-
mitted a copy of it by post to tie Emperor of the French ;
the former was banded to the Duke of Newcastle by the
late Lord D. Stuart, who, a few days afterwards, re-
ceived an answer that " the suggestions would receive due
consideration." I have shown it to many friends now
living, and I hope that the original finally returned to
the owner eis still be found amongst the papers of my
lamented friend. From the Emperor I did not receive
any reply.
On Lord Panmure coming to the War-office I
forwarded a similar memorandum on the same subject
through the kind offices of the Earl of Zetland. Mr.
Gaskoin returned an answer, which I have got in my
possession, implying the same promi,e and couched
precisely in the same language. It is most surprising
that the War-office in this country in returning an
acknowledgment do not specify or allude in any way
to the suggestions submitted to its consideration.
It is true that i❑ the memorandum just spoken of I
had not advised the construction of new machines, I
merely recommended to protect your men-of-war in-
tended for the attack with a series of steelsheets in order
to make them bomb-proof. I do not think that the
present Floating Batteries are an improvement upon
my plan. In the first place war being then declared I
did not think it was a proper time for building new ships.
Secondly, they are men too clumsy, too dark, too
heavy and too unmanageable. In the third place, owing
to the over anxiety of making them in every part how-
ever unimportant, perfectly invulnerable, they are not
only too dark inside (for preventing), but they detain
too long gunpowder smoke, which not only suffocates
artillerymen, but renders their pointing more a matter
of form; what is more, you will soon ascertain them,
especially while in hot climates, to be perfect " hot-
beds," to preserve and create scurvey, fever, and other
nialariatic maladies. Lastly, they have materially in-
creased the expenses of the war, which, in my opinions
forced the mites to discontinue it just at the very mo-
ment that they could have fully attained their legitimate
object, I mean the crippling of Russia, so as to render
her completly unineddllng and inoffensive for many
years to come.
I was so certain of my discovery that on the 16th of
June of the same year I offered to Lord Panmure in a
memorandum transmitted through the kind offices of
my excellent friend the Eerl of Harrowby, to construct
no the same principles of protection, wheeling bomb-
proof rooketrybattering batteries, with which I undertook
within 24 hours, and by merely making use of old rockets
that encumber the English and the Irish arsenals, to
bnry Sebastopol in ashes and ruins. Was this