HMS Inflexible

“ For a moment it appeared as if they intended to approach the Kent at the harbour entrance, but, a few minutes later, they wore away with the evident intention of joining their comrades.
Both cruisers were now visible from the upper bridge of the Invincible; and the tops of the Invincible and Inflexible must have been equally apparent to them; though it still seems uncertain whether they had positively identified yet the two great cruisers that spelt their doom. ”

“ The keel and floor-timbers of the Inflexible, a ship of three hundred tons, which had been laid at Quebec, were taken to pieces, and carried over to St. John's, on the Lake, where a dockyard was established, under the superintendence of Lieutenant Schanck, an officer of extraordinary mechanical ingenuity. Here, on the morning of the 2nd September, the Inflexible was again laid down, and by sunset, all her former parts were put together, and a considerable quantity of additional timbers prepared. The progress of the work was like magic. ”

“ They were the first battleships to be built wholly of steel for the British Navy, and were asserted to be more powerful as fighting ships than any other ships in existence. This was due not only to the material of which they were constructed, but also to the fact that they were given breech-loading guns, Great Britain being the last of the great Powers to dispense with the old-fashioned muzzle-loader. These ships were of much the same type as the Ajax and Inflexible, but their citadels were of greater length; they were of fourteen knots speed. ”

“ With all the men and means at his command, he could not get ready to sail until well on into the month of October. But when he was ready his was a fleet fit to terrify as well as astonish the farmers that, for the most part, composed the American forces, then under command of General Gates, at Ticonderoga and Crown Point. The Inflexible, that carried the flag of the fleet, was a ship of 300 tons, and carried eighteen twelve-pounders. There was one schooner called the Maria, with fourteen guns, and another, the Carleton, of twelve guns. ”

“ She is omitted also out of gratitude to Lord Brassey for a sentence in which, while saving her from being placed in so dreadful a category, he honestly places some of the other ships in it without qualification or circumlocution. He says: “In one important particular the Ajax and Agamemnon are inferior to the Inflexible. The central armored citadel is not, as it is in the case of the Inflexible, of sufficient displacement to secure the stability of the ship should the unarmored ends be destroyed.” ”

“ There was no cheering, either then or even a few days later, when the Inflexible and the Invincible, the latter flying Admiral Sturdee's flag, came nosing in from the Atlantic and dropped anchor at the 'Base'; but the promise of action in the immediate future was like wine to the men. They were simply tumbling over themselves to carry out the most ordinary routine duties, and so it continued right up to the moment that Von Spee's foretops, gliding along above the low promontory of Port William, brought them to 'Action Stations' with real work to do at last. ”

“ Not only had the resistance of the structure to hostile shot to be considered, but the power to strike heavy blows in return was even more important. Artillerists were, with improved plant, constructing heavier guns than the 38-ton, and we were not prepared to view with equanimity foreign vessels with an advantage over ours in this respect. The outcome of such views was the 'Inflexible,' designed by Mr Barnaby, then Chief Constructor of the Navy. In her the armour at the side only extended for a length of 110 ft., in the centre of the vessel, so that the complete armoured belt was abandoned. ”

“ At a quarter to ten the Carnarvon, Inflexible, Invincible, and Cornwall weighed and stood out to sea in the order named, and overtook the Kent and the Glasgow, which had gone out and joined her a few minutes earlier. The German ships were now in full sight to the south-east—hull down, and doing the "Goeben glide" for all they were worth. In the British ships the stokers were working furiously, the smoke belching in thick volumes from the funnels; and, with every man at his post, their decks flooded with water as a preventive against fire, and hoses ready, the vessels gradually gathered way. ”

“ The Kent, which was at five minutes' notice, was the first ship to get under weigh, probably with orders to keep the enemy in sight but not, of course, to try to engage them. The Glasgow was the next out, and then the Carnarvon. The Cornwall was ready to follow close on the heels of the latter, but, as I have told you, had to wait for the battle cruisers, which were now under weigh. We went out not far astern of the Inflexible, and the Bristol, which had been on long notice in the inner harbour, was last, at a considerable interval. ”

“ On a calm day in 1782 the great hundred-gun line-of-battle-ship Royal George sank at her anchors in the harbor of Spithead, carrying down almost a thousand souls; thirty years ago the Captain, then one of the finest of England’s steam turret-ships, capsized at sea, and not a man survived. Each of these vessels was perhaps the best of its kind in the world. No better navigators exist than naval officers, yet they ran the historic old steam-frigate Kearsarge on Roncador Reef, in the Caribbean Sea, in broad daylight, and left her there a total wreck. ”

“ In fact, the lifetime of an iron or steel hull is not defined to any limit, and if a perfect anti-corrosive and anti-fouling composition can be produced, the limit may be regarded as indefinite.
The foregoing remarks on our new navy apply to unarmored cruisers, a class of ships which supply a want in time of peace, but cannot fulfil the purposes of war. At such a time the armored ship is recognized as indispensable, and there is every reason why the construction of armored vessels should proceed simultaneously with that of the unarmored cruisers. ”

“ On the other hand, it is not to be inferred from the objections thus offered to the employment of deceptive designations that objection is also offered to the construction of some ships with limited or partial protection, falling short of the protection of the buoyancy and the stability, and therefore of the life, of the ship itself. It is quite impossible that [40] all the ships of a navy like that of Great Britain, or of the navies of many other powers, can be made invulnerable, even in the region of the water-line, to all shot or shell. ”

“ Ships that are “ship-shape,” that is, possess masts and sails, but are constructed wholly of iron or steel, and more or less heavily armored, have survived, and will always be a part of the world’s navies, no doubt, but their uses will be subsidiary to heavy fighting; and with the disappearance of the wooden sailing line-of-battle ship in the Crimean war and of the iron war-steamer a quarter of a century later, all traditions of the “old navy” were ended—traditions that went back to the days of Drake. ”

“ It is widely supposed that, wherever the men wanted for the navy may have come from, they were forced into it by the system of 'impressment.' The popular idea of a man-of-war's 'lower deck' of a century ago is that it was inhabited by a ship's company which had been captured by the press-gang and was restrained from revolting by the presence of a detachment of marines. The prevalence of the belief that seamen were 'raised'—'recruited' is not a naval term—for the navy by forcible means can be accounted for without difficulty. ”

“ By reason of its lightness, pliancy, elasticity, and toughness, it is, we think, the best, without exception, for the formation of small fast-sailing war-vessels. We are pretty certain that our Navy Board would not have cause to regret trial of it in a long, low, sharp schooner, of sufficient breadth to stand up under great press of sail, moulded as much as possible to combine great stability with small resistance from the water, and when in quick motion to be buoyant—especially not to dip forward,—provided it could be procured not too old, and free from rot, large knots, and cross-grain ”

“ Again the sides of the yacht belched forth fire and smoke, shaking the little vessel through every oaken joint.
"Fire away as you load," again shouted the captain. "Let each gun fight for itself. Take sight at his poles, and bring his huge mainsails down without giving him the trouble to let go his halyards. Give your foe a lift when you can, is my maxim, my lord. There, he returns it," he cried, as a flash illuminated the open decks of the pirate. "Down all!"
The hurricane of iron passed high above their heads, cutting the rigging and splintering long, slender pieces from the spars. ”

“ She came along with the wind on her starboard quarter, noisily ploughing the waves before her with her blunt bows, under three huge lugger sails, covering each mast from deck to truck, [Pg 38] a jib, and triangular mizzen sail not unlike a ship's spanker. The moon shone white on all, while its rays were reflected in quick flashes here and there, as if from steel, from amid the dark mass on her decks.
"A fine shot in that dense crowd, Edwards," said the captain. "Give every man a musket after the broadside is discharged, and let him pick a red cap for himself." ”

“ The brave seaman beheld many of his crew swept off, and saw them, without the power to help them, struggling amid the boiling sea; but their shrieks were lost in the louder shrieks of the wind, and the flying vessel soon left them far astern. Others were lashing themselves to the rigging; others clinging to the guns; and all were exerting themselves to preserve their lives. Casting his eyes aloft, he saw, with a pang of grief, that his main-topgallant-mast was gone, and that his fore-topmast was wounded and tottering fearfully at every pitch of the vessel. ”

“ At that time the ablest shipbuilder in the United States was Joshua Humphreys, a Quaker, who for thirty years had been laying down keels at Philadelphia. Going to General Knox, the Secretary of War, he made a notable statement. The number of ships which the United States could support, he said, would always be less than the number in any of the large European navies. It was therefore necessary that such ships as we did have should be fast-sailing enough to either fight or run at will, and when they chose to fight they must be equal, ship for ship, to anything afloat. ”

“ Although the Admiralty adopted iron ships, it did not finally abandon its old wooden ships until 1874—or a year after that in which the first steel vessel was built for the Navy—in which year the British Navy was enriched by the addition of the wooden corvettes Sapphire and Diamond. Iron screw-driven cruisers or corvettes were the successors of the smaller fast wooden vessels, and a number of fast unarmoured ships of various types were built. ”

“ It was a beautiful ship, and the dockyard had been lavish with their attention to detail. From bow to rear tubes she was plated in pure gold. There are other metals with a higher albedo, but none that give a richer effect. All the fittings, inside and out, were either machine-turned or plated. All this work could not have been done in the time allotted, the Navy must have adapted a luxury yacht to my needs.
Everything was ready. Either Pepe would make his move—or I would sail on to my billionaire's paradise planet. ”

“ Modern marine architecture is making steamships almost unsinkable, more quickly responsive to their helms, more seaworthy in every way. Perhaps with the perfection of the submarine boat, ships, instead of being tossed on the boisterous surface of the waves, may go straight to their destination through the placid depths of ocean. But whatever the future may bring, the history of the American sailor will always bear evidence that he did not wait for the perfection of safety devices to wrest from the ocean all that there was of value in the conquest ”

“ It was towards the end of 1914 that the German Admiralty conceived the idea of blockading the British Isles by means of a submarine fleet. There were, as we have already seen, great difficulties in the way. For the pursuit and capture of commerce, a submarine is not nearly so well fitted as an ordinary cruiser; is not, in fact, well fitted at all. To hold up and examine a ship on the surface is too dangerous a venture for a frail boat with a very small crew; to put a prize crew on board, and send the captured vessel into port, is generally impossible. ”

“ As merchant ships, which were all flying the red ensign, increased in size, it became increasingly difficult for foreigners to distinguish these from the ships of the Royal Navy—a difficulty which was further intensified for them by the fact that a squadron of the Royal Navy might be sailing on one coast under the blue ensign, while another squadron was sailing under the red, and yet another under the white, according to the rank of the admirals of their respective squadrons. ”

“ Again, of these twenty-nine only twenty-one were of 300 tons and upwards and suited for distant expeditions; of the twenty-one the Elizabeth, Hope, Victory, Triumph, and White Bear, were not liked—too big, too expensive, or too unhandy—and were never used unless a fleet of great strength was required. The names of a few ships recur, therefore, year after year as forming the main strength of the squadrons, made up with armed merchantmen, sent out for various purposes. ”