The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-05 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

When the levee at Devonport Dockyard closed
on Monday, at half-past two o'clock, Sir John
Pakington joined his colleagues at Keyham, and
they proceeded to inspect several of the ships of
war in Hamoaze, including the Nile, Indus, Ocean,
Agincourt, Implacable, Wyvern, Nassau, Royal
Albert, and Canopus. Yesterday morning they
went on board the Royal Adelaide, and, but for
the heavy rain, would have visited the Impreg-
nable, Cambridge, and the ships for training boys.
Meanwhile the Admiralty yacht was moved from
Hamoaze into Barn Pool, where Sir John was to
entertain Admiral Xelverton and the officers of
the Channel squadron liow in the Sound. At 11
in the evening the Osborne was appointed to start
for the Scilly Islands, Cork, and Pembroke.
The Duke of Cambridge has left Gloucester
House, Piccadilly, on a tour of visits in Scotland.
The appointment by the Admiralty of Captain
Astley Cooper Key, C. 8., governor of the Royal
Naval College, Portsmouth, and commanding the
Excellent gunnery establishment, to the new
office of " Acting Director-General of Naval
Ordnance," fulfils the pledge made on the subject
by Sir John Pakington and his colleagues during
the recent Admiralty inspection at Portsmouth, and,
it may fairly be presumed, is the first step towards
the establishment of a permanent Naval Ordnance-

office, for the arrangement and supply of Her Ma-
jesty's ships without interference on the part of the
authorities of the War Department. To the navy

this is one of the most important appointments made
for a great number of years, and we trust the Ad-
miralty will invest the new office with sufficient
powers and Capt. Key with sufficient responsibility
to satisfy the country that the supply of guns to
the iron-clad ships of her Majesty's navy will at
once be taken in hand with all the energy and ra-
pidity which its vast importance demands, and which
we may reasonably expect from Capt. Key's known
opinions on the subject. The appointment has been
made just in time. Of the 29 completed vessels
forming our iron-clad fleet, not one is yet armed
with armour-piercing guns according to the new
scale. We possess the swiftest and the strongest
iron-clothed ships in the world, but they all carry
guns whose projectiles are harmless against ships of
similar weight and thickness of broadside armour.
Russia has armed her ships with a large number of
Krupp steel and other ordnance of the heaviest kind.
Austria and Prussia have not been behiudhand in
the matter, and even the ships of the new Italian
kingdom carry heavier guns than the ships of this

country. Brazil and Chili both possess a goodly
fleet of iron-clads—not Warriors, it is true—all
carrying heavy rifled guns, and America has lately
shown us specimens of her 15-inch Rodman smooth-
bores in the turrets of the Miantonomah, and calls
attention to others of 20-inch bore and to thousands of
Parrot rifles in store. We are in no such state ofprepa-
ration. The first completed set of guns, with their car-
riages and slides, for any one of the iron-clad ships of
this country is now being landed on the wharf of the
steam basin of Portsmouth Dockyard. They are for
the Bellerophon, screw iron frigate, Capt. E. Tatham,
now cruising off Portland, but daily expected at
Portsmouth to land the ballast with which her decks
at present are cumbered, and ship her 9-inch 12-ton
rifles in their proper positions in battery. When the
Bellerophon has her guns on board, we certainly
shall have one efficiently armed ironclad frigate to
compare with those of other nations, and we shall
have the satisfaction of knowing that she will be the
heaviest armed broadside gun ship in the world.
The guns for the Bellerophon consist of 12 12-ton
9-inch rifles, ten of which will be fought behind the
11
61-inch plated broadside of her central battery, with
four 64-ton 7-inch rifles, and four lighter gnus for
chase and shell practice. The ten guns in the cen-
tral battery will be trained by means of lever arms
fitting in a slotway on the under part of the slide,
and worked from the deck below the battery. By
this arrangement half the gun's crew will be placed
below the water-line of the ship, in perfect safety
from shot, shell, or splinters entering the gunports,
and will necessarily keep the battery deck so much
the clearer in time of action. While the Bellerophon
will thus, as a plated iron frigate completed accord-
ing to her original designs, embody in herself what
we believe to be the essential requisites of a perfect
broadside gun ship, in her speed, her handiness under
steam and sail, the thickness and toughness of her
sides and the power of her guns, there is another
frigate at Portsmouth which, as a converted and
plated wooden frigate, will also be the representative
of her class, and will rank not unworthily alongside
even the iron Bellerophon. This vessel is the Royal
Alfred, fitting out by Capt. E. Tumour for flagship
duties, and reported to be intended for the North
American and West India station, for which she is
pre-eminently adapted. She is a wooden ship carrying
the usual coppering below the water-line, will have an
armament equal to that of the Bellerophon, carries
6k-inch plating over her central battery, will have a
12-knot measured mile speed, and has ample accom-
modation for officers and crew, with excellent ven-
tilation throughout. The Royal Alfred was nearly
finished under No. 6 building slip of Portsmouth
yard as a 90-gun frigate, when she was partially
taken down and converted to a frigate to carry
armour-plating. Since Mr. E. J. Reed has been in
office he has taken the Royal Alfred in hand, and
the frigate, instead of only carrying 68-pounder
smooth-bore guns behind 4i-inch plating, as was at
first intended, will now carry, like the Bellerophon,
ten 12-ton 9-inch rifles behind 6i-inch plating.
On the portions of her main deck outside the cen-
tral battery she will carry four 6-ton 7-inch rifles,
to fire either through broadside ports or through the
ports behind her bow and stern armour-plating.
On her upper deck she is also to carry four of the
6-ton 7-inch rifles, besides the usual complement of
field and boat guns. The guns for the frigate are
said to be all ready for her, but only one carriage
and slide has yet been received for her at Ports-
mouth, and this is now in hand in the Steam Fac-

tory, fitting with running in and out gear—and
otherwise completing in some of the details of the
fittings. All the carriages and slides for the Royal
Alfred are to be completed in this way, in order to
expedite as rapidly as possible the equipment of the
ship for service. The armour-plating of the Royal
Alfred is disposed in four forms-L-1. A band of
plating entirely round at the water-line. 2. Cen-
tral broadside armour-plating, rising from water-
line band to upper-deck planking, 100 ft in length
on each side. 3. The entire of the bows and stern
encased with plating. 4. Plated bulkheads across
the
gun-deck at the extremities of the broad-
side forming the armour-enclosed central
ship'splati ng,
battery.
antner,vCetatpe,t.CLaupatradin,
and the Pallas,
armoured The Hector, armourirwonnocifering
this morning to join the C
Connolly, are both expected
hanntoelsflaeiel
tfornomitsSwpietshteaernd

cruise.
The Orontes, screw iron troopship, Capt. H. W.
Hire, sailed from Portsmouth yesterday afternoon
for Queenstown, to embark the. Gist Regiment for
conveyance to Quebec.
The Robust, in course of building on No. 3 slip
in Devonport Dockyard, to receive 81 guns, is
to be cut down and converted into a double cupola
armour-plated ship like the Royal Sovereign, 5 guns.
The screw steamfrigate Orlando, 46, will be placed
to-day in No. 1 dock in Keyham Steamyard.
The screw steamsloop Vestal, 4, will to-day vacate
No. 3 dock in Keyham Steamyard, in which will be
placed the screw steamship Lord Clyde, 24, Capt.
Roderick Dew, C.B.
Rear-Admiral It. S. Robinson, Controller of the
in phleorgzisasj
easttyW,soiroelwn isctheaDmosctkeyraesrhdip
Navy, yesterday inspected the departments and ships
Industry
Commander Yonel, went down to Woolwichy,e
sSttearff-
day, from Deptford, laden with a cargo of victualling
Janeiro,agts
storesT he for
Admiralty
R
t Liverpool have chartered
io de
agents

the Cunard steamers Europa and Tarifa for the con-
veyance of the 13th Hussars and their horses to
Canada. They will probably sail on Wednesday or
Thursday next.

The E battery, B Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery,
from Dublin and Bristol, marched into garrison at
Woolwich on Monday evening, and took up quar-
ters in the west square at the Royal Artillery bar-
racks, having started from Bristol on Aug. 25. The
marching detail is as follows :—Capt. W. Saunders,
in command, 2d Capts. E. Vaughan and W. Walton,
Lieut. J. Bramley, Assist.-Surg. Ramsay, one vete-
rinary-sur., two staff-sergts., five sergts., five cor-
porals, four bombardiers, 57 gunners, 50 drivers,
one farrier, one Armstrong armourer, four shoeing
smiths, three collar makers, two wheelers, one
trumpeter, 127 horses, six 9-pounder guns, six am-
munition waggons, one store limber, one forge, and
one store cart.

A detachment of nine non-commissioned officers,
told off for special service in Canada, took their de-
parture yesterday from the depot, Royal Artillery,
Woolwich, and proceeded by train to Liverpool, to
take the mail packet thence to Quebec.
We have to announce the death of Vice-Admiral
C. Rich, who died yesterday afternoon at his tem-
porary residence in Pall-mall, from the effects of an
accident. On Sunday night, in descending the lower
flight of steps of the staircase at the United Service
Club, he made a false step, and fell with great vio-
lence on the marble pavement. He sustained a very
severe cut on the head, besides other injuries. The
Admiral was immediately taken to his lodgings, a
few doors from the Club, and medical aid was
promptly obtained. He died yesterday afternoon
between 12 and 1 o'clock. His commissions bore
date as follows :—Lieut., June 28, 1810 ; Com-
mander, Jan. 27, 1816 ; Captain, June 28, 1838 ;
retired Rear-Admiral, Sept. 10, 1857 ; and Vice-
Admiral, Feb. 9, 1864.
The following appointments have been made at
the Admiralty :—Capt. -Utley Cooper iKey, C. 8.,
to be Acting Director-General of Naval Ordnance;
Capt. Hood (of the Pylades) to the Excellent, vice
Capt. Key; Sub-Lieut. G. H. R. Willis to the Lord
Clyde ; Gilbert A. Meason, midshipman, to the
Ocean ; John Masterman, midshipman, to the Hec-
tor ; C. J. G. Sawie, naval cadet, to the Ocean, as
supernumerary ; Edward B. Eyre and Arthur Dew,
naval cadets, nominated, and Peter Robertson, en-
gineer, to the Orontes.