The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-12-05
Tho British Navy.

This is a time when the fierce light or pub
lcity beats down upon all things and shows
them as they are with pitiless exactitude
Nothing escapes We all live now with the
privilege of going behind the scenes and seeing
how emperors and expresses, as well as cob
blers, 'make up for the part they have to
play on the stage. The cipherea dispatches
received by crowned conspirator against
humanity are soon made public property by
thunder strokes of calamity that search him
out through the walls Of his palace and the
ranks Of his guards. Nobody, nothing, can
escape this dread ordeal. And it is well
that it should be 70. Truth has lived too
long at the bottom of WELL 1t is high time
she came little nearer the surface.
The latest sham to be exploded is the
British navy, conventionally supposed to be
all powerful, but in reality, as is we'll known
to those who have followed the ignoble story
Of British naval NATURALIZATION, quite
Enthusiastically instrument of power in point
OF fact. This exposure has beer made with
crushing effect by that brilliant sailor Captain
Sherard Osborn, who has spent years of
energetic, but fruitless, attack upon the
Board Of Admiralty at Whitehall--an Office
which has been for century standing before
the world wearing q fools cap and bells as
complacen,ly as though they were laurelled
crown and sceptre. In a letter to the London
Times of November Is Captain Osborn states
facts which are humiiating and shameful to
England, and, in view of possible complica-
tons, ought, just now, to be really alarming.
First, it appears, incredible as it may seem,
that this precious Board was in possession of
the most complete analysis, automatically
certain In its terms, that the Inflated Captain,
which went down like stone little while
ago, drowning all her crew, was quite unfit to
cope with gale of wind under canvas. This
thoroughly reasoned statement contrasts the
sailing qualities in heavy weather Of the
Monarch and the Captain, aud amounts to a
plain warning that the latter unfortunate YES
sci was absolutely untitled to sail in company
with the first; in fact, amounted to clear
prophecy that if she attempted to do under
canvas what the Monarch could easily do
there would be tremendous catastrophe.
This warning was not communicated to the
commander Of the Captain, and, accordingly,
be and his ships company persisted, slain vir-
tually by the criminal negligence of the British
Admiralty.
But Captain Osborn's letter contains far
more serious matter. He charges upon the
| whole British fleet Of iron-clads that the I'M
equal thickness Of their armor plating, their
| full rig and their high freeboard, or side COM
bined make them quite unfit to keep the seas
| in heavy weather, and expose them to certain
destruction at the hands Of foreign artillerists,
| who knew, in fact, far moro about them than
British naval officers. The Captain quotes
from letter TO himself Of one Of the ablest OF
British naval officers the startling statement,
y Dc not helieYe that we have today six YES
ssls that could keep the sea and sail together
in o very ordinary winters gale" So much
| for their seaworthiness and power to sail to-
| gether as consorts and feet. But what Of
their armor plating3 The Captain is even
more decisive on this head, and states facts
which throw light upon the powerlessness o.
the French navy in this war, as well as upon
the certain hclplessness OF the existing British
navy in any war. The high freeboard, OF
side, of the British ships--and the. French arr
similarly built-has rendered it necessary te
cover them with plating Of unequal thickness
| otherwise they would aot be capable Of going K