The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-03 00:00:00

A CHANCE FOR BRISTOL.

The Great Britain has, according to the various
accounts of those who went in her from Bristol to
London, made a most successful experimental trip,
under circumstances well qualified to test her capabi-
lities. True, she had only ballast on board, and was,
consequently, light and buoyant as a duck ; but she
steered admirably, and so conducted herself through-
out a boisterous passage, as to leave the impression
that, under any circumstances, she will be able gal-
lantly to face foul weather. The fair presumption is,
that she is a capital sea-boat.
Now, Government wants good sea-boats, and
builds very bad ones. With Government steamers,
failure appears to be the rule—success the exception.
Bristol builds good steamers—witness the Great
Western and Great Britain. The fair inference is,
that Government cannot do better than give Bristol
an order.
A writer in a morning paper, evidently conversant
with the subject, shows that in almost every instance
Government steamers have turned out, on trial,
lamentable blunders. The Gorgon, on her first trip,
swam so much by the stern, that, in her passage from
Sheerness to Longreach, " the lower ports on the
main-deck had to be caulked in ; and, notwithstand-
ing this, the officers' cabins were filled with water."
She would only go eight miles an hour, and her
builders were compelled to "caulk in the ports fitted
for guns." To make up for the Gorgon being so much
by the stern, the Victoria and Albert swam so much
by the head that 200 tons of lead ballast had to be
placed aft to keep her on an even keel; and she steered
badly. The Firebrand, in her experimental cruise,
" rolled and jerked about to that degree in a sea-way,
that it was impossible to cast the guns loose for prac-
tice." The Cyclops, the Retribution, and other
vessels, were equally failures. The Examiner, in
reference to these official " mistakes," observes—
" If you happen to fall in with a steamer at sea, mak-
ing bad way and bad weather, you may be sure that she
is a man-of-war. Slowness, awkwardness, and uneasi-
ness, are the certain characteristics of the man-of-war
steamer. The common trading packets beat them
wherever they happen to try their speed with them. It
is curious, indeed, that the managers of these things in
the navy have so contrived matters as never yet to have
produced a tolerably good man-of-war steamer. The
uniformity of the failure is quite extraordinary. In so
many experiments it is singular that there has been no
solitary deviation into success. The surveyor, however,
takes his measures so as to guard against any such irre-
gularity, and no one of his steamers shames the others.
When they are put to shame, it is by packets with cargoes
of pigs, oxen, and the like."
It is not a little strange that England, so long the
first naval power in the world, should, notwithstand-
ing her great experience, hav failed so often and so
signally in the construction of her war vessels. Is it
not lamentable that the service should have been
crowded with "Forty Thieves"—" Donkey Frigates,"
that could " neither fight nor run"—and gun-brigs,
facetiously known as " Coffins," in consequence of
the " alacrity in sinking" for which these vessels
were distinguished? It is notorious, too, that in the
last war many of the best ships in the British navy
were those taken from the French. We won our
naval battles, not because we had better ships, but
because our sailors and officers knew better than
French officers how to handle them, and because our
seamen were better than those of our neighbour. So
well known were the superior sailing qualities of the
French vessels, that it used to be a stupid boast that
British ships were built to fight—French ones to rtua-
away. But, as it is well known that the superior
sailing qualities of a ship frequently give her crew
immense advantages in taking up a position, it is clear
that in this respect, as in many others, we won our
battles against odds.
We mention these circumstances, because what was
true of Government-built ships at that time is true of
Government-built steamers in the present day; and
favouritism
the frequency of failure then, as now, leads to the
presumption that there must be something amiss in
the Government system—inefficiency, ,
wrong-headedness, or want of science. Now, con-
sidering the immense importance of the naval service
in upholding the honour, interests, and reputation of
this country, and considering the increasing import-
ance of steam-frigates as a branch of that naval ser-
vice, the repeated failures in the building of efficient
Government vessels are worse than disgraceful—are