now being transformed into steamers, is also to be taken into account. Those engines, varying from 600 to 780-horse power each, were paid for several years ago. That made for the Vulcan was set aside for a first-class steamer, ordered to be built by the Peel Lords of the Admiralty, which was to be called the Audacious. The Russell Lords of the Admiralty ordered it otherwise. Instead of the Audacious, they would have a first-rate steamer built, to be called the James Watt, and the engines originally made for the Vulcan, and paid for, were accordingly laid aside to await the completion of the James Watt. The propriety of giving this name to a first-class steam-ship cannot be questioned; but with the fact in our recollection that a first-rate man-of-war is named the Nelson, in honour of that Admiral, and that the ship cannot be navigated outside the harbour, a puff of wind threatening to heel her over, fill her with water, send her to the bottom, and drown the crew, there only seemed a bare chance of the memory of James Watt deriving any honour from the ship ordered to go by his name. But even that bare chance is now gone; the Lords of the Admiralty have again changed their mind, and there is not to be a James Watt. We must, therefore, look for the employment of those engines elsewhere. Another large steamer was ordered to be built, and was proceeded with for a time. Whether its name was selected in honour of any eminent personage is unknown. But the name was Beelzebub. A change of mind in the Lords of the Admiralty has put Beelzebub and James Watt in the same category; neither are to have a ship. Beelzebub's engines are sent elsewhere. In searching among the navy returns to see what has become of the Vulcan's engines, the discovery is made that before the Seahorse set of frigates were selected for the 350-horse power engines there were other ships and frigates selected, namely, the Wellington 72, Devonshire 72, Venus 42, Diana 42, Pitt 72, Sutton 72, Naiad 42, Laurel 42, Armada 72, Invincible 72, Druid 42, Dublin 50, and Saturn 56. But after commencing upon those ships, they were found to be so "very defective," to use the official character given to them, that they were set aside, and the following chosen instead :-Blenheim 72, Hogue 72, Ajax 72, Edinburgh 72, and our friends the Eurotas, Horatio, Forth, and Seahorse. All is known that need be inquired about in respect of the four last. But the Blenheim, Hogue, Edinburgh, and Ajax were proceeded with until they became steamers. In tracing their progress and their cost, the London, Nile, and some men-of-war of their gigantic dimensions are fallen in with; the Vulcan's engines, and the others of the Vulcan class, are to be placed in the London, the Nile, and other 92, 90, and 30 gun ships, unless another change of mind in the Admiralty, or another change of the Admiralty Lords, orders to the contrary. At present we come to a pause after quoting the testimony of the Naval and Military Gazette, a paper generally devoted to the maintenance of naval and military extravagance, yet ashamed of the ship-building and steam-engine making, that paper says: "It was neither the officers, nor seamen, nor the hemp, tar, and timber in the dockyards and stores that created the excess in the Estimates" (yet the excessive consumption of those articles did increase the Estimates), "but the fancy building and tinkering of the ships. They were constructed on some beau ideal, and when taken to sea were inefficient in some points or other. The word then, different from the commands in the steamer-Stop her!' Ease her!' &c., was Lengthen her!' 'Shorten her!' Cut down her masts!''Give her more ballast!' Iron steamers were built, and then it was discovered that shot would knock them to pieces like crockery-ware; frigates were cut down to be steam-tubs, with other fantastic tricks. There being no specific remedy for a ship rocking like a cradle, when one was proved to be in that dilemma she was sent 'to sleep on her shadow' in Porchester Lake, or Hamoaze; all these alterations were put down as 'repairs,' and a pretty penny they cost. The money laid out in these experiments in the last two or three years would have kept 10,000 able seamen in constant employment." Say rather, would have kept 10,000 useful working men in constant employment, or would have repealed the tax upon coffee or soap, or taken half the tax from tea or sugar. But it is unnecessary to contend as to what should have been said. The testimony of the naval journalists in proof of a waste of public money is accepted. SECTION IX. EXPENSES AND SERVICE OF SHIPS IN ORDINARY. In this section the examination of the ships transformed to steamers, or otherwise altered, is continued and concluded. From the necessity of being brief, a few only can be glanced at. The Edinburgh was built in 1811, at a cost of £66,167. In the following nine years her repairs or alterations cost £53,865. The cost of repairs up to 1845 have not been printed. In that year she was ordered to be lengthened, and converted into a steam guardship. The work was proceeded with, and the expense incurred, when the Lords of the Admiralty in the Russell Administration of 1846 came to the opinion that, to put new and expensive machinery in old ships; to add new and expensive lengths to vessels originally mal-constructed, and already older than one-half of all the ships sold and broken up during the last twenty years; to fit up guardships which could only creep out of harbour and along the coast, like lame sailors out of hospital, unfit to go to sea, and not intended to go to sea, was a scheme of coast defence at once extravagantly improvident and inefficient. Those ships, of which the Edinburgh is one, were then delayed in preparation, to be farther considered. Not being completed, the cost of altering the Edinburgh has not been obtained; but the cost of the Blenheim, a ship originally of the same malconstruction, and in 1845 ordered to be transformed to a guardship, is before us :The Blenheim was built in 1813, at an expense of... Repairs and alterations in the first eleven years of her age, namely, to 1824.... .£59,249 .42,202 Whole period of service, from 1813 to 1845, five years and a half. Cost of alterations from November, 1845, to March, 1847, in lengthening her hull eight feet, at Blackwall.. .£31,857 6,951 From March, 1847, to May, 1847, in further altering her hull, at Woolwich .... 4,471 Sheerness.. Having been cut into by the experimenter, this unfortunate ship seems to have writhed and rolled like a wounded worm from Blackwall to other experimenters at Woolwich, from them to others at Sheerness, there to be healed as follows :— Masts, rigging, and stores...... Contract for engines.. Additional expenses by alterations in engines. £8,220 22,150 1,460 278 ..£176,838 Total cost of the Blenheim from 1813 to 1847....... And this ship, having been only five years and six months in commission, unfit at all times to be sent to sea, is not even now intended to be a sea-going ship. The Ajax is another of the old men-of-war operated upon to make a steam guardship. Her cost and repairs from the year of being launched, 1809, to the year of transformation, 1845, have not been recorded, or, if so, not printed in the returns. But her period of service from 1809 to the present time, is returned as seven years, one month, two weeks, and four days. The operations upon the Ajax, with the view of making her a steamer, began and proceeded thus: 6,623 From November, 1845, to September, 1846, in altering hull at Cowes £15,912 From September, 1846, in further altering hull at Portsmouth (Those alterations not yet finished.) For masts, rigging, and stores (not finished) Engines (not finished)... ........ 309 21,531 It is now uncertain whether the Ajax goes forward or backward in the work of transformation. In whichever direction the work may go the expense is lost. The Hogue, a 74-gun ship, built in 1811, at an expense similar to the Blenheim, whose service has only been two years, ten months, three weeks, and three days, and which has been subjected to alterations and repairs similarly expensive and improvident as in the case of the others, was the fourth of the guardships ordered in 1845 by the Peel Government, and halted in the process of transformation by the Russell Government. The costliness of the Blenheim, and the official discussion thereon, has allowed the public a glimpse at the cost of altering and repairing other ships not intended to be steamers. The master-shipwright, who experimented upon the Blenheim, defends the amount of costs by adducing precedents, thus : From another source we ascertain that the Armada's service for this cost has been from 1810 to 1848, four years and two months. In like manner the operator upon the Blenheim lets the public know that the Gloucester, 50 guns, was launched in 1812 at the cost of.. And was repaired in her first ten years at a further cost of...... £68,134 53,404 £121,538 The Gloucester has been employed eleven out of thirty-six years. 53,865 36,465 £158,265 Almost every other ship in the navy has gone through a similar course of alterations and repairs-some before being launched. The Amphion is a specimen of this class of ships. She was begun to be built in 1830. The public money continued to be sunk in her until 1845, at which period she was ready to be launched as a sailing frigate, but it was then ordered that she should be altered into a steam-frigate. Her case stands thus:— The Amphion, cost of building from 1830 to 1845 Further alterations when launched....... ...... Cost of the Amphion up to 1846 ................... £36,115 13,211 8,912 18,173 £76,411 The amount of her repairs since 1846 has not been published; but those who have read the "naval intelligence" in the newspapers, or who have seen the squadrons of evolution on the coast, or in the Bay of Biscay, or in the Tagus, or in the Straits of Gibraltar, must know that among the "lame ducks" that waddled in the water the Amphion was often the hindmost, and always the lamest. If the squadron returned a few hundred miles the way from whence it came, it might come up with this cripple of the dockyards, and turning it round, give it a forward position, but it soon tarried behind footsore or out of joint. The last official bulletin of this ailing ship was the following, dated March, 1848, and signed by Sir Baldwin Walker, the new surveyor of the navy :-" Amphion, 1,474 tons; 300-horse power; greatest speed, 9.9 miles per hour; screw; said to be an experimental failure in machinery; a frigate cut down." The expense of altering the 92-gun ships, such as the London and Nile, into steam-frigates is not yet known. The engines made for the Simoom, Vulcan, and other large iron steamers, are to be placed in those men-of-war. Of malconstruction, alterations, and transformations many more examples might be adduced; but enough have been specified in the present and preceding sections to inform the public of the great national wrong done to an industrious people by the privileged factions, who, usurping all political power, and all the offices of Government, are alike ignorant of the principles as of the practice of skilful industry. There remain three lists of ships to be presented to the public; first, those that are built have being repaired, or are in want of repair, and have done no service, or have not been more than ten years in service. Second, those that have been condemned and broken up during the last twenty years, most of which were young ships, never at sea. Third, those unfinished ships which have been condemned and broken up, and were never launched. LIST OF SHIPS OF THE NAVY LYING IN ORDINARY, WHICH HAVE DONE NO SERVICE, OR NOT MORE THAN TEN YEARS, WITH THEIR AGE IN 1848. No. of .... .... .... NAMES. Guns. 1 Nelson........ 120 2 Neptune ...... 120 3 Royal George.. 120 4 Royal William. 120 5 St. George 120 6 Waterloo...... 120 7 Camperdown.. 104 8 Prins.Charlotte 104 9 Royal Adelaide 104 20 .... .... .... 10 London 92 8 0 ...... .... .... 89 Creole 26 3 0 13 Bombay 84 20 91 Havana 20 37 4 14 Calcutta 15 Clarence...... 81 21 93 Arachne 18 1 16 Formidable.. 17 Monarch.............. 84 .... 16 3 95 Hazard 14 il .. 18 Powerful.. 84 22 3 .... > ૭ ૭ 9 IRD R 1 65119 .10 .... 0 4 3 0 0 11 8 26 Agincourt 72 31 104 Saracen 10 27 Armada 28 Bengal.. 72 35 4 8 106 Sea Lark. 10 29 Black Prince.. 156 5 31 Cornwallis 72 35 109 Plover 0 7 .... .... .... The whole number of the ships of war, of different rates, in ordinary, was, in 1848, two hundred. Of one hundred and fifty it is seen that sixty-four were never in sea service, while the service of eighty-six ranges from one month to ten years. Forty-six of the two hundred have been in commission from ten to twenty years, and four have been in commission from twenty to twenty-seven years. SERVICE. SECTION X. SHIPS CONDEMNED AND BROKEN UP DURING THE TWENTY-ONE YEARS ENDING 1848. There is no information on naval expenditure which excites reflections more grave than the list of ships condemned and broken up, most of them at a very early age. SHIPS CONDEMNED AND SOLD, OR BROKEN UP SHIPS CONDEMNED AND SOLD, OR BROKEN UP Andromache .. 44 28 Niemen............... Cyrene.. ........ 20 .... 16 .... 46 Larne........ 20 14 ........... IN 1830. NAMES. Guns. old. .... 44 18.... 23 Peruvian...... 18 .... 22 Sappho...... 18 SERVICE. Years. Mths. Cephalus 8 Ceres. 8 24 15 .... Chatham.............. 0 41 0 .... Plymouth. 0 .... Leander Bellette 18 14 7 2 92.... uncertain-none. SHIPS CONDEMNED AND SOLD, OR BROKEN UP, NAMES. Guns. old. 9 620 IN 1831. SERVICE. Years. Mths. 0 .... 23 .... 23 6 Argonaut...... 64 8 7 Eclair 18 27 .... Pandora...... 18 0.... 16 18 18 .... Lapwing 0 1 ... ...... Resolution 0 0 0 0 31 none. ...... IN 1829. |