STEAM AND WARSHIPS
The use of the steam engine as a propellant had been established in
the mercantile marine long before the British Admiralty led the way in
the adoption of the steamship as an engine of war. There were several
reasons why the decision to take the important step was not reached
earlier. In the first place there was a repugnance, amounting with many
persons to an unconquerable aversion, against the use of the steamship
for any purposes whatever. Steamships were regarded as unsightly with
their splashing paddle-wheels and their high funnels belching forth
smoke, and as the steam mercantile marine had been by no means free
from boiler explosions and had lost many vessels through fires caused
by sparks or cinders from the furnaces, or the overheating of wood work
near the flues, it was argued that the introduction of so many fresh
dangers into the country’s fighting ships would only add to the perils
of the sea, which were already serious and numerous enough.
The navy possessed many fine wooden ships which could be handled
extremely smartly under sail and presented a magnificent contrast and
beautiful picture compared with the smoky steamer. The latter, it
was graciously admitted, might have its uses in towing the sailing
warships, but that anything further should be advocated was too
subversive of all that had gone before; too revolutionary, indeed, to
merit a moment’s consideration.
It was in vain that the advocates of the adoption of steam propulsion
urged that the steamship could carry guns, that she would be
independent of wind and tide, and that she could choose her own
position. These strategical advantages were simply derided. What, it
was asked in reply, could a small steamship armed with such guns as
she could carry, do against a battleship; or, for that matter, what
could any number of armed steamships do? When it was pointed out that
an armed steamship could engage with every advantage an enemy’s ship of
the same size, the retort was that a battleship would never be far off.
Strange though these objections seem to us in the light of subsequent
events, it must be recollected that marine steam engines in those days
were bulky for their power and weak for their weight, and consumed an
enormous amount of coal for the energy developed, and that there was no
room to spare in the fighting ships of the period; also, that the steam
engine was not far removed from the experimental stage. For the first
twenty-five years of the nineteenth century the Admiralty had every
excuse for the maintenance of its conservative attitude.
In America, also, the objections to steam war vessels were as acute as
in this country. One United States secretary of the navy declared that
he would never consent to see the beautiful sailing warships displaced
by hideous and smoky steamers, but the advocates of the new method of
ship propulsion were not of his opinion, and so worried the worthy
man that in despair he wrote to a sympathetic friend, “I am steamed
to death.” Another and earlier American administrator was so opposed
to warships of any kind, or at least to spending much money on their
construction, that he conceived the brilliant idea of having some small
gunboats built which could be taken overland from port to port and
launched afresh, when necessary, to oppose the British warships. It is
a pity he could not have derived some inspiration from the invention
of Oliver Evans, an American, who in 1804-5 designed a dredger which
bore the terrible name of _Orakier Amphibolos_; it had a steam engine
of some sort, and propelled itself on wheels from the shed where it was
built, to the Schuylkill, a distance of a mile and a half, and being
fitted with a paddle wheel in the stern, navigated the river to its
junction with the Delaware.[27]
France, like England, was disposed at first to look upon the steam
engine as useless for naval purposes, and until well towards the middle
of the nineteenth century she was a long way behind England in the
application of steam power to the navy. Many of the smaller nations,
however, having but a few insignificant sailing ships for war, were not
trammelled, as were England and France, by the possession of a large
fleet of wooden sailing vessels of types which had helped to build up
the national renown, nor had they to contend against the energy of a
powerful section of the community which, conscious of what had been
accomplished with the sailing warships, despised anything else and
hated innovations. The smaller nations were the better able, therefore,
to experiment with warships of the new type than were the great
maritime powers, and one or two of them ordered small steamers carrying
a few small guns. These were mostly converted merchant steamers, it not
being until after England and France had definitely adopted steamers
that the other nations ventured to possess steamships specially built
for purposes of war.
But when steam navigation had become an accomplished fact and
steam-propelled vessels were able to undertake ocean voyages, there
was the less excuse for the absolute rejection of steam-driven ships
for war purposes. The objections raised, and they were certainly
serious, were that the paddle-boxes were large and increased the size
of the target at which the enemy could aim, that one or other of the
paddle-wheels could easily be disabled by a hostile shot, in which case
the steamer would be almost helpless, and would be entirely so if both
wheels were disabled; that the engines and boilers, being partly above
the water-line, were peculiarly vulnerable, and that the only vessels
of a size capable of being propelled by paddle engines were too small
to be of much fighting value.
Long before steam engines were adopted in any form in the navy,
numerous experiments had been made in the mechanical propulsion of
warships, and some extraordinary methods were brought forward. The
remarkable feature of nearly all these experiments is that they would
propel a vessel; but the inventors could not be taught, except by the
bitter lesson of experimental failure, that an appliance which might
attain a certain measure of success with a small boat or a model might
be incapable of developing sufficient power to propel a larger vessel.
Several inventors, both in this country and America, tried what they
could do with oscillating paddles at the stern. Manual power was tried
on the frigate _Doncaster_ at Gibraltar, in 1802, to drive a “perpetual
sculling machine,” invented by a man named Shorter, and a speed of
something under two miles an hour in still water was obtained.
Certain of the early experiments in America had an important influence
upon the development of the steam warship, though the proof of that
influence did not become evident for many years.
Colonel John Stevens, who had a small, screw-propelled steamboat
on the Hudson, in 1804, and a twin-screw steamer in the following
year, designed, in 1813, an iron-clad ship which fully embodied
the _Monitor_ type, and was the first ironclad ever worked out for
construction. It was Stevens who sent the first steamer on a sea
voyage; his vessel, the _Phœnix_, being shut out of the waters of New
York by the monopoly which Fulton and his friends had secured, went
round to the Delaware by sea in June, 1809, experiencing a gale on the
way, which compelled her to seek shelter in Barnegat Inlet.
Of Fulton’s early experiments and failures in the matter of submarines
and torpedoes it is unnecessary to speak. In 1814, some years after his
return to the United States from Europe, where he had been impartially
offering his services to the French and then the British, he submitted
to the American coast and harbour defence committee plans for a steam
warship which was to carry a large number of guns.
The boat was launched in October of that year and given the pedantic
name of _Demologos_, which was simplified to _Fulton the First_. The
war ended before the vessel could be tested, and she became a receiving
ship. Her machinery was arranged to drive a large paddle-wheel, placed
amidships and working in a tunnel in the hull. She was to carry twenty
guns, not forty-four as sometimes stated, and furnaces for red-hot
shot, and was to travel at a rate of four miles an hour. Besides her
deck armament it was proposed that she should have two submarine guns
suspended from each bow, which were to send a hundred-pound ball into
an enemy’s hull ten or twelve feet below the water-line. Her machinery
was intended to pump a tremendous column of water upon the enemy’s
decks and through the latter’s portholes. Her gun-deck was completely
covered over so that no hostile shot could reach it from above. Her
wooden walls were five feet in thickness, and capable of withstanding
the heaviest shot of the day. The dimensions of this remarkable
craft were: length, 156 feet; beam, 56 feet; and depth, 20 feet; but
her draught, loaded, was only 10 feet. The water-wheel, the position
of which is indicated in the centre of the accompanying plan of the
gun-deck, was 16 feet in diameter, and had blades or buckets measuring
14 feet with a dip of 4 feet. The cylinder of the engine measured 48
inches, and the stroke was of 5 feet. The boiler was 22 feet long by
12 feet beam, and 8 feet deep. The gross tonnage of the vessel is set
down at 2,475 tons. The ship was two-masted, and could steam either end
foremost. She was built at Brown’s yard at New York, in four months
after her keel was laid, and given her machinery and guns at Fulton’s
works on the North River.
Another vessel, destined like the _Demologos_ never to see active
service, but which, nevertheless, was the first iron-clad steamer
actually built, was the ship designed, in 1841, by Edwin A. Stevens, a
son of John Stevens, at the time that hostilities were feared between
England and the United States.
Mr. J. Elfreth Watkins, in an address before the Philosophical Society
of Washington, in 1892, said:--“As thick armour plate could not be
made at that date, he devised the method of armour plating in laminæ,
or plates laid over each other and riveted. He then made a series of
experiments to determine the thickness of plating required to resist
the different sizes of balls then in use. From these experiments, which
were made at Bordentown, N.J., in the summer of 1841, he made the
deduction that a target of iron 4½ inches thick would resist a 64 lb.
shot, at that time the heaviest ball used in our navy.”
This standard of thickness was afterwards adopted by European naval
architects for warship iron armour.
A committee of naval and military officers was appointed which made
numerous tests, and as a result Congress entered into a contract with
Stevens for the construction of “a war steamer, shot and shell proof,
to be built principally of iron,” and making an appropriation for the
purpose.
Up to this time there had been but little change in the power of guns
since the time of Nelson, but Commodore R. F. Stockton’s successful
construction in England of a wrought-iron gun throwing a round shot
able to pierce a target 4½ inches thick, induced Robert Stevens, who
was associated with Edwin A. Stevens, to alter the plans and increase
the thickness of the armour so as to fulfil his contract to build a
ship that should be “shot and shell proof.”
The production of still more powerful guns, both in America and Europe,
caused more alterations and delay. It is of interest to note the
dimensions of this vessel in order to see to what an extent Stevens
anticipated the designs of some later engineers. When Robert Stevens
died, in 1856, the ship was then 410 feet long, 45 feet inside the
armour shell, with two feet of freeboard, and with a square, immovable
turret enclosing depressible guns. She had her engines and boilers,
and it would not have taken long to complete her; but for some reason,
which need not be gone into here, except that the vessel was too far
in advance of the officials at Washington, who were wedded to wood and
sail, she was never launched, and was ultimately sold in 1881 for old
material. Besides being armoured and turreted, she had a powerful ram
of the “axe-head” pattern.
[Illustration: THE STEVENS BATTERY.]
A writer in the _Cosmopolitan Magazine_ for May, 1898, says:--“That the
Stevens battery would have been irresistible as a ram and invulnerable
as a fort is easy to be seen; but the Stevenses were condemned in this
case by official obstruction to undeserved failure.... During these
years, though constantly undergoing alteration and reconstruction,
she was at all times in a condition which would have admitted of her
rapid completion had an emergency arisen, on the plans which were for
the moment being carried out, and these plans were always so far in
advance of general naval construction that if so finished she would
have been a match for a fleet of the best vessels of the world at the
same time. Thus, while the naval armament of the world was light, her
original armour of 4½ inches would have rendered her invulnerable to
the shot of an enemy, while her shell guns would have meant certain
destruction to any vessel not provided, like herself, with an armour
capable of keeping out such shells. As the size and penetrating power
of cannon shot were increased, so was the provision for heavier
armour made in the Stevens battery, and her own guns were at the same
time enlarged in the successive designs.” This refers to the period
immediately prior to the American Civil War.
Another Stevens invention was that of the air-tight fire room, by Edwin
A. Stevens, in 1842, whereby forced draught was rendered effective.
Colonel John Stevens, in 1812, designed a steam-rotated circular fort
for the defence of New York Harbour, and a year or two later, his son,
Edwin Stevens, under the guidance of his father, was experimenting with
a 6-pounder bronze cannon against some iron plating. The elongated
shell, with which the name of Stevens is always associated, was
invented by Robert L. Stevens during the war between England and
America in 1813-4. The shell could be fired from ordinary cannon.
[Illustration: THE “RISING STAR.” _From a Painting in the possession of
the Earl of Dundonald._]
“Having perfected this invention, he sold the secret to the United
States after making experiments to prove their destructiveness, so
decisive as to leave no doubt of the efficacy of such projectiles.
One of these experiments was made at Governor’s Island in the presence
of officers of the army, when a target of white oak, four feet thick
and bolted through and through with numerous iron fastenings, was
completely destroyed by a shell weighing 200 lb., and containing 13
lb. of best Battle powder. This solid mass of wood and iron was torn
asunder; the opening made being large enough, as the certificate of the
officer commanding, Col. House, stated, for a man and horse to enter.
These shells are free from the danger accompanying ordinary shells,
for they are hermetically sealed and suffer no deterioration from
time.”[28] Some of them, indeed, were fired experimentally twenty-five
years after they had been made and were found to be as effective as
similar shells fired soon after they were loaded.
It cannot be said that the British Admiralty was not forewarned. Even
at the time of Fulton’s experiments, Lord Stanhope, who was interested
in the subject, wrote to Wilberforce that “when ships of any size may
be navigated so as to go without wind and even directly against both
wind and waves ... it will shortly render all the navies of the world
(I mean military navies) no better than lumber.” He pointed out that
ships independent of wind and weather were superior to sailing ships,
and that “the boasted superiority of the British navy is no more.” A
new navy was necessary, and the French and other nations for the same
reason would have one. His lordship proved himself a true prophet so
far as the other nations were concerned, for the British Admiralty was
about the last to adopt steam-driven battleships; but as to the rest of
his prophecy, Trafalgar had not then been fought.
When steam navigation came, it came to stay.
But though the Admiralty hesitated, others did not. Probably the first
steam-driven ship of war which ever went to sea, though not the first
mechanically propelled war vessel--the Far East, as we have seen,
ante-dating us in this matter by a couple of centuries--was the _Rising
Star_. She was certainly the first to traverse the waters of the
Atlantic from north to south, and the first steam warship to round Cape
Horn and pass into the Pacific.
The _Rising Star_ was a remarkable ship in many ways. She was built at
Rotherhithe for the tenth Earl of Dundonald when, as Lord Cochrane,
he was engaged by the Chilian Government to create and take command
of the Chilian navy, and stipulated that a steamship should be built
as the best means of neutralising the difference between the Chilian
and Spanish naval forces. The _Rising Star_ was really taken out by
Major the Hon. William Cochrane. Owing to various vexatious delays
in construction, she did not reach completion in time to permit of
her arrival in time to participate in the war, the energetic Admiral
Cochrane having, in the meantime, disposed of the Spanish fleet with
his customary thoroughness. The ship was begun at Kier’s yard in 1820,
and arrived at Valparaiso in April, 1822. How she was propelled is a
matter of conjecture. At one stage of her career she had paddles of
some sort, and also paddle-wheels, but when she finally left England a
different system altogether appears to have been adopted, which seems
to have been an application of the jet method, by which the ship is
propelled by forcing out of streams of water through apertures in the
hull below the water level.
The _Rising Star_ is shown in a contemporary engraving of her to have
been a full-rigged ship, without royals, and carrying, besides the
ordinary square sails of her rig, peculiarly shaped square-headed
staysails between the masts.
This vessel has been referred to in several books as the _Rising Sun_;
it is as well that the error be corrected and her right name given. The
statement that the _Rising Sun_ went to Chili for Lord Cochrane in 1818
is erroneous, though often made both in this country and in America.
The Admiralty thought so little of steam engines at first that it did
not trouble to record the names of its early steamers in the navy list.
Owing to the representations of Marc Isambard Brunel, the Admiralty
consented to try steam, and experimented with two small paddle-boats,
the _Monkey_, built at Rotherhithe in 1821, and the _Comet_, built at
Deptford in 1822, which were acquired to be used as tugs or despatch
boats. The former was a vessel of 210 tons, and had engines of 80
nominal h.p.[29] by Messrs. Boulton and Watt. The two cylinders were
each about 35½ inches diameter, with a stroke of 3 feet 6 inches,
and, working at 26½ revolutions per minute, gave a mean piston speed
of 185 feet per minute. It will be interesting and instructive to
contrast these figures with those of the latest engines in warships,
which will be found in another chapter. The _Active_ and _Lightning_
followed in 1822 and 1823 respectively, their names appearing together
with a few others for the first time in the official navy list for
March, 1828.[30] None of these steamers, however, could be classed as
war vessels. From this year to 1840 seventy other steam vessels were
added to the navy. All the early steamers were built in private yards,
and the contractors had even to provide the engine-room staffs, which
were taken over together with the steamers. By 1832, the Admiralty
bestirred itself and built its first steamer, the _Salamander_, but
until 1840 none was over 1,000 tons, and all were of wood, propelled
by paddle engines, and such guns as some of them carried were small
and ineffective. With the increase of the size of the vessels came
a more than corresponding increase in the power of the engines. The
_Rhadamanthus_, for instance, built in 1832, had engines capable of
being worked up to 400 indicated h.p., though they were of 200 h.p.
nominal. The safety valves carried a load of 4 lb. to the square inch,
and the total weight of the machinery was 275 tons. In 1839, five
wooden steamers were built for the Admiralty, and two of them, the
_Hecla_ and _Hecate_, of 817 tons, and 250 h.p. each, were sent to
Scott’s, at Greenock, to be engined, and were the first naval vessels
to have their machinery fitted on board in Scotland.
But when men like Brunel, Scott Russell, and Laird of Birkenhead, were
loudly advocating the adoption of steam-propelled war vessels, and
the steamers were proving their superiority over the sailing ships in
every respect, the Admiralty was compelled to pay attention. These men
also urged the adoption of iron in place of wood for shipbuilding.
The idea was ridiculed. It was in vain that it was pointed out that,
though a piece of iron would sink and a piece of wood of the same size
would float, the true test of buoyancy lay in the total weight of the
material used in the construction of a hull, and that a hull of given
external dimensions and built of iron would be more buoyant than a hull
of the same dimensions and built of wood, and that the difference in
favour of iron amounted to as much as 20 to 35 per cent.
The mere fact that iron steamers were already in existence had little
influence with the Admiralty. The first of these was the _Aaron Manby_,
built at Horsely in 1821, for Captain (afterwards Sir) Charles Napier
and the gentleman after whom she was named. Others were doing service
in Ireland. In 1832, Messrs. McGregor, Laird and Co. had the _Elburkah_
constructed for employment on the Niger; she was 70 feet long, by 18
feet beam, and 6 feet 6 inches depth. Two years later Mr. Laird built
at Birkenhead the _Garry Owen_, a little vessel only 125 feet long and
fitted with two engines of a total of 90 nominal h.p. She went ashore
during a gale on her maiden voyage, having as companions in misfortune
several wooden vessels, and was the only one to be refloated, being
little the worse for her misadventure. This proved the strength of an
iron-built ship beyond doubt, and iron coasting steamers after this
became comparatively numerous.
The first iron warship, a frigate, was proposed by Laird in 1836,
and built at his yard at Birkenhead in 1842; it was offered during
construction to the Admiralty, which would have none of it, so it was
sold to the Mexican Government, which christened it the _Guadeloupe_.
This vessel was 175 feet in length, by 30 feet 1 inch beam, and had a
depth of hold of 16 feet.
The East India Company appreciated the value of iron steamers suitable
for war purposes, and placed an order with Laird in 1839. One of those,
the _Nemesis_, built under this order, went to India via the Cape, and
took part in the China operations in 1840-2. She was struck several
times by cannon balls and holed. Her commander, Captain Hull, reported
in his evidence before the Royal Commission, in 1848, on the naval
estimates, that the holes were made clean and without splinters, thus
disposing of the theory that iron when struck by a shot would splinter
worse than wood. Her armament consisted of two 32-pounder pivot guns
so mounted as to give her a wide range of fire, and as she drew but
five feet of water she may be regarded as the first of the shallow
river-gunboats which have done such excellent service in so many parts
of the world.
Meanwhile Francis Pettit Smith in this country had adapted the screw
propeller to steam navigation, and after one or two experimental boats
had been successful, the _Archimedes_, fitted with a screw propeller of
his design, made her memorable journey from port to port of the British
Islands in 1838. The _Novelty_, a slightly larger vessel, of 117 feet
in length, was launched the next year, both coming from the yard of Mr.
Wimshurst, at Blackwall.
About this time Ericsson brought out his screw propeller, and having
equipped a small steamer with it, towed the Admiralty barge a
considerable distance upon the Thames with the Lords of the Admiralty
on board, besides making other experiments, all of which were not
without a fair measure of success. The navy officials were not
convinced, however, that the application of the power at the stern was
of practicable value for warships. So Ericsson went to America, and
devoted his remarkable inventive genius to the welfare of his adopted
country. Had he remained in England, and had his inventions been taken
up by the Government, the history of the ’sixties might have been very
different, for it was he who designed the _Monitor_, the small turret
ship which prevented the Confederates from obtaining the command of the
sea in the American Civil War.
In 1841, he accepted an order from the United States Government to
furnish the designs for a screw warship, the _Princeton_, this being
the first vessel which had the machinery wholly below the water-line
and out of reach of an enemy’s shot. This vessel is claimed by
Americans to have “dictated the reconstruction of the navies of the
world.”[31] Several mechanical novelties and contrivances strange to
warships, and for the most part owing the form in which they were
introduced into this vessel to the fertile brain of the inventor,
made their appearance in the _Princeton_. She had a direct-acting,
semi-cylindrical steam engine of great compactness and simplicity,
independent centrifugal blowers for ventilating the machinery
compartment and assisting the combustion in the furnaces, so as to
avoid the exposure during an engagement of the smoke stack which, as a
greater measure of safety, was made on the telescopic principle. The
12-inch wrought-iron gun, with which the vessel was armed, was the
first of its kind, and was at that time the largest and most powerful
weapon afloat. He designed the wrought-iron gun carriages, and provided
them with contrivances for dispensing with breeching and taking up the
recoil. There were also an optical instrument to enable the commanding
officer by mere inspection accurately to ascertain the distance of the
object to be aimed at.
The Admiralty relented towards iron for shipbuilding in 1840, when
it had the paddle-steamer _Dover_ built at Birkenhead, and three
small iron gunboats followed from the same establishment before the
end of the year. The demonstration afforded by the _Garry Owen_ has
been alluded to. The _Great Britain_, that magnificent pioneer of the
iron screw steamship, launched at Bristol, in December, 1844, ran on
the rocks at Dundrum Bay on the coast of Ireland, in 1846, and was
successfully refloated after being ashore for nearly eleven months,
during which she withstood several severe gales. After this it was no
longer possible either to ignore the superiority of iron over wood for
constructional purposes, or to doubt the immense strength with which an
iron ship could be built.
The enterprise and daring of Brunel in designing this ship without any
data to go upon stamp this vessel as an evidence of his extraordinary
genius. She was in a sense the forerunner of the _Great Eastern_,
for she demonstrated what could be done with iron; and the _Great
Eastern_, constructed on the longitudinal system, though a commercial
failure, proved the advantages of that system for vessels of such
remarkable length, as to a large extent her design solved the problem
of overcoming the sagging and hogging strains and showed the Admiralty
what could be achieved in contending with this difficulty. This success
helped in no slight degree to the introduction of the iron-clad citadel
system some years later.
The success of the _Archimedes_ and the _Great Britain_ demonstrated
the power of the screw, and in the latter that iron must be the
material for future ship construction, whether in the navy or the
mercantile marine. The Government clung to wood for all its fighting
ships as long as it could, but it decided to try the screw propeller,
without, however, abandoning the paddle-wheel, and many fine vessels
were launched.
Before this, Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare built at Blackwall, in 1842,
and Messrs. J. and G. Rennie engined, a small iron steamer of 164 tons
builders’ measurement, and 98 tons displacement, called the _Mermaid_.
She was a screw steamer, and was fitted with George Rennie’s conoidal
propeller; this was a three-bladed screw propeller with the blades
arranged to resemble a cone with its widest part at the boss of the
propeller shaft and tapering towards the tips of the blades. The
engine, having two vertical cylinders of 40 inches diameter each, and
32 inches stroke, and with a pressure of 8 lb. in the boiler, indicated
216 h.p. A spur gearing transmitted the power to the screw shaft,
giving it 153 revolutions per minute and driving the vessel at its
trial, in May, 1843, at a little above 10½ knots, or over 12 miles;
as the Admiralty had promised to take over the vessel if she attained
a speed of 12 miles, she was accordingly purchased and under the
name of H.M.S. _Dwarf_ has the honour of being the first iron screw
steamer the British Government possessed. The _Dwarf_ was largely used
afterwards for experimenting with various kinds of screw propellers.
With the exception of the bombardment of Acre, in 1840, there was a
long interval during which the world’s navies were not called upon
for any serious engagements, and the development of warship building
which took place during that period was the result rather of scientific
research than of actual fighting experience, and there was consequently
no need, while the nations were recovering from the wars of the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, for any remarkable advances
to be made. For the first fifty years of the nineteenth century the
warships were much as they were in Nelson’s time, except that some of
them were fitted with mechanical means of propulsion.
The battle at Acre was the first in which war steamers took part, four
paddle-wheel boats, the _Gorgon_, _Vesuvius_, _Stromboli_ and _Phœnix_,
being included in the British force. They were not of a size to do much
fighting, the bulk of which devolved upon the big sailing warships, the
duty of the steamers being rather to wait upon the three-deckers in the
capacity of armed tugs. The engagement had little, if any, influence
upon the admiralties of Europe in deciding them as to the position
steam navigation should take in the fighting marine. These steamers
were not the first to fire a shot in war. That honour, if honour it
be, is attributed to the Canadian-built _Royal William_, which crossed
the Atlantic partly under sail and partly under steam in 1833, and it
is on this performance that the Canadians claim to have sent the first
steamer eastward across the Atlantic. While she was lying at London
she attracted the attention of the Spanish authorities by reason of
her speed, and after satisfying themselves that they could depend upon
her to steam in a calm and even against the wind, they purchased her,
with the consent of the Portuguese, to whom she was chartered, renamed
her the _Ysabel Segunda_, gave her six guns, and used her against the
Carlist revolutionaries. She was wrecked not long afterwards.
In order to test the advantages of the paddle-engine in a fighting
ship, the wooden 46-gun frigate _Penelope_, which was built for a
sailer, was cut in two in 1843, and lengthened to enable her to
accommodate the engines and 600 tons of coal. She and about thirty or
forty sister ships had been constructed on the model of the French
_Hebe_ class of frigates, but as they were now hopelessly outclassed
by the heavier frigates introduced by other nations, this experiment
was about the best use to which she could have been put. The sudden
transformation of this out of date and none too powerful frigate into a
vessel capable of holding her own against any vessel afloat created a
tremendous sensation both in British and Continental nautical circles,
and paddle-driven frigates of various sorts and sizes were introduced
in the course of a few years in most of the European navies. When
lengthened she was faster under sail than before, and her steam power
made her independent of the wind and would have enabled her to choose
her own position had she been called upon to participate in a naval
engagement. Her new armament consisted of two large 10-inch pivot guns
of 84 cwt. each, eight 68-pounders able to fire both shot and shell,
and fourteen 32-pounders, “making a total of twenty-four guns of this
immense calibre.”[32] Her steam engines, of 625 h.p. nominal and 700
indicated, were described as of greater power than any previously
placed afloat in the navy or the mercantile marine. The cylinders were
of 92 inches with a length of stroke of nearly 7 feet; the engines
were of the direct acting type, such as were supplied to many other
vessels of the time, and the paddles could be disconnected. Hall’s
patent tubular condensers were fitted, and her four tubular boilers
each had five fireplaces. One peculiar feature was that the main mast
was stepped between two of the boilers. The _Penelope_ carried a crew
of three hundred officers and men, and could accommodate a thousand
soldiers with provisions and water for a voyage to the Cape. Inasmuch
as her tonnage was only 1,780 tons, she must have been uncomfortably
crowded, especially if the soldiers’ wives and families accompanied
them.
Some frigates were built to be paddle-propelled, one being the
_Terrible_, twenty-one guns, which had engines of 800 h.p. The
_Valorous_, the last of the type, was withdrawn in 1883.
Probably the most luxurious paddle-propelled steam frigate ever
launched was the _Faid Gihaad_, whose sumptuous fittings were intended
to gratify the taste for comfort, no less than the extravagant
whims, of the then Pasha of Egypt. She carried on the upper deck two
84-pounder pivot guns and twelve 32-pounder broadside guns, and on the
main deck fourteen guns of the latter type. Yet she was described as a
yacht--of 2,200 tons. She was built by Mare and Co., of Blackwall, in
1852.
One drawback urged against all paddle-wheeled war vessels was that the
deck space was seriously encroached upon, and that the paddle-boxes
restricted the range of the guns. To get over this difficulty the
sponsons were carried further forward and aft, before and abaft the
paddle-boxes respectively, the deck-houses, which usually encumbered
the sponsons, were removed, and the bulwarks were carried along the
outer edge of the sponsons, thereby giving greater deck space; and
as each sponson under this arrangement carried a gun, a vessel thus
fitted had four more guns than was previously possible. Two of the guns
had a range extending from abeam to right ahead, and two from abeam to
right astern.
One vessel thus equipped in accordance with Scott Russell’s patent was
the _Dantzig_, built by Robinson and Russell, at Millwall, for the
Prussian navy. She was of 1,280 tons, with a deck length of 230 feet,
and a draught of 15 feet; her paddle-wheels were of 24 feet 4 inches
diameter. Her dimensions, no less than the arrangement of her armament,
attracted widespread attention. She distinguished herself against the
Riffs in 1856.
The Admiralty ordered, in 1843, its first screw steamer, the _Rattler_,
a sloop of war of 1,078 tons displacement. She had engines of 437
indicated h.p., and of the type known as Maudslay’s Siamese, spur
gearing increasing the revolutions of the screw to four times those of
the crank. These engines derived their curious name because of their
double cylinders, the arrangement having been patented some years
before by Messrs. Maudslay and Field, to enable a long cylinder to be
fitted in a paddle ship where the height is limited.
When there was so much difference of opinion among those passing as
experts as to the respective merits of the paddle-wheel steamer and the
steamer driven by a screw propeller, the Admiralty decided to settle
the controversy by pitting representative vessels against each other
and noting the result.
Accordingly the _Rattler_ was selected to champion the screw, and the
_Alecto_ the paddle-wheel.
[Illustration: THE TRIAL OF SCREW _v._ PADDLE--H.M. SLOOPS “RATTLER”
AND “ALECTO” TOWING STERN AND STERN.]
The _Alecto_ was a paddle sloop, driven by direct acting engines,
but otherwise was a very similar vessel to her screw rival. The two
vessels were fastened stern to stern, and ordered to steam ahead. The
screw steamer won the novel tug of war, the _Alecto_ being towed stern
foremost. This remarkable encounter took place in the North Sea, on
April 3rd, 1845, in calm weather. A more important tug of war was that
on June 20th, 1849, when the screw corvette _Niger_ was pitted against
the paddle sloop _Basilisk_ in the Channel, and again the screw boat
was victorious.
The _Trident_ was the first iron steamship of war ordered by the
Admiralty, and the first ever built. She was launched from Messrs.
Ditchburn and Mare’s yard, at Blackwall, in December, 1845, and
in the shape of her hull followed the lines of a sailing ship of
the same size. Her length over all was 200 feet, and between the
perpendiculars 180 feet; her beam was 31 feet 6 inches, and over the
paddle-boxes 52 feet 6 inches, and her burthen was 900 tons. She had
engines of 330 h.p., with oscillating cylinders and tubular boilers,
so that altogether she was an important vessel in the constructional
development of the British navy. She was very strongly put together,
as her ribs were double, each rib being composed of two angle irons,
4 inches by 3½ inches by ½ inch thick, riveted together, and in one
entire length from the gunwale to the keel she having a total of two
hundred and seventy pairs of these double ribs. The iron skin was ¾
inch thick at the keel, and diminished to ½ inch at the gunwale. She
was to carry two long swivel guns of 10-inch bore, one fore and one
aft, to fire in line of keel, and four 32-pounder guns to fire on the
broadside.
In 1846 the _Birkenhead_ was built at Laird’s yard to the order of
the Admiralty as the first of a series of steam frigates, and was one
of the largest iron steamers belonging to the Government. Her length
between perpendiculars was 210 feet, breadth of hull 37½ feet, breadth
over paddle-boxes 60½ feet, depth of hold 23 feet, and her tonnage
1,400 tons (carpenter’s measurement). She was followed, in 1849, by
the _Simoom_, launched by Napier, at Glasgow, and by the _Megæra_,
by Fairbairn, at Millwall, all being classed and armed as steam
frigates. The _Birkenhead_ was to carry a 96-pounder pivot gun aft,
and a similar weapon forward, and four 68-pounders on the broadside,
and it was pointed out that her round stern would add to the range of
fire of the “Long Tom” aft. However, the Admiralty had serious doubts
of the efficacy of these vessels, and having made some experiments
with an iron ship called the _Ruby_, found that the 32-pounder gun at
short range could perforate the side of the iron ship, and that the
projectile carried its “cloud of langrage” with great velocity into the
interior of the ship, so that men could not stand against it. These
experiments resulted in the _Simoom_, _Birkenhead_, and ten smaller
vessels being condemned as warships. Some of them were transformed into
transports, and the Admiralty returned to its beloved wooden walls once
more. The loss of the transport _Birkenhead_ shortly afterwards is one
of the most tragic and heroic episodes in the whole history of the
British army. The Admiralty caused other tests to be made with sixteen
wrought iron plates superposed, having a total thickness of 6 inches,
but these also were perforated by the projectiles of the 32-pounder at
400 yards range.[33] The result was that the adoption of iron for the
main structure of a ship was delayed until the discovery was made of
the rolling of armour plates, in the time of the Crimean War, but it
was not until 1859 that the Admiralty may be said to have definitely
adopted rolled armour plates.
In the year 1849 Scott, Sinclair and Co. launched, at Greenock, the
first steam frigate built on the Clyde for the British navy, and thus
inaugurated that association between the Admiralty and the Clyde
iron-ship builders which has been maintained uninterruptedly from that
day to this, to the marked advantage of both. The _Greenock_, for the
vessel was named after the port, was 213 feet in length of keel and
fore-rake, by 37 feet 4 inches beam, and was of 1,413 tons Admiralty
measurement, and had engines of 565 h.p. Her machinery compartment
measured 72 feet in length and contained the whole of the machinery,
consisting of four rectangular boilers, fitted with brass tubes,
and two steam engines, lying flat on the bottom, the whole being so
arranged that all parts were several feet lower than the surface of the
water. The screw, which weighed 7 tons, and was 14 feet in diameter,
could be detached and lifted from the water.
“The funnel also,” says the _Illustrated London News_ of May 12,
1849, in describing the vessel, “is to have some peculiar mode by
which its hideous and crater-like physiognomy can be made at once to
disappear, and leave the ship devoid at once of this unsightly feature,
and of those cumbrous excrescences, paddle-boxes, giving her all the
appearance and symmetry of a perfect sailing-ship.”
She carried ten 32-pounder muzzle-loading guns. Her machinery is of
special interest as it embodied one of the earliest attempts to drive
a screw propeller by gearing. For this purpose it had four sets of
massive spur wheels and pinions, in the ratio of 2.35 to 1, so that 42
revolutions of the engines per minute gave 98.7 revolutions per minute
to the propeller shaft.
The engines installed in steamers, whether for war or commerce, were of
the side-lever type, until they were superseded by the direct-acting
type. The former was peculiarly suitable to the paddle-wheel, and in
one form or another is in use to the present day. In America, the
practice has been to place the beam or lever above the crank, but on
this side of the Atlantic the beam was placed below the crank. So
far as warships were concerned, this method had the advantage that a
great part of the machinery could be placed low down in the vessel.
But the very fact that a vessel was propelled by paddle-wheels made
it impossible to place the whole of the engine below the water level;
it is evident that the greater the diameter of the side-wheels the
greater must be the distance between the surface and the crank or shaft
upon which the wheels are fastened for rotation. As increased power
was required, it became necessary to add to the size and weight of
the engines, which in this respect soon reached the profitable limit
of their employment. Engineers were not long in foreseeing the extent
of the difficulty, and, in seeking means to provide a smaller engine
without loss of power, discovered a method of eliminating the lever
and causing the engines to act direct upon the crank shaft. One very
ingenious method by which the desired result was accomplished was that
associated with the name of Mr. Penn, who introduced the oscillating
cylinder in 1836. In these engines the connecting rod is done away
with altogether, the piston rod works directly on the crank pin, and
the cylinder is carried on trunnions which permit of the necessary
oscillation, and are themselves made hollow in order that the steam
may be admitted to and exhausted from the cylinders through them. The
first Admiralty vessel in which they were fitted was the yacht _Black
Eagle_. Another method by which great economy in space was effected was
the double cylinder engine invented by Messrs. Maudslay. It consisted
of two cylinders of equal size placed side by side, but with a space
between them into which the foot of a =T=-shaped cross-head passed, the
foot of the =T= head being connected by a connecting rod with the crank
pin.
With the side-lever engines the difficulty of driving the paddle-wheels
at the required speed was overcome by the introduction of the gearing
wheel, and this contrivance was applied also to the engines for driving
the screw propeller. As the piston speed was increased it became
possible to connect the crank shaft direct to the screw shafting.
The engines used for driving paddle-wheels were either inclined or
vertical, but after the introduction of the screw propeller for
warships, the engines were built of the horizontal type and this method
remained in vogue for about thirty years. The difficulty of working
in the confined space was met by Mr. Penn with the trunk engine,
with which he achieved a still greater success. His equipment of the
warships _Arrogant_ and _Encounter_ with trunk engines in 1847 so
satisfied the Admiralty that engine power for driving screws could
be placed so far below the water-line as practically to be safe from
an enemy’s shot, that altogether he applied them to no fewer than
two hundred and thirty vessels, from a gunboat requiring 20 h.p. to
such ships as the _Sultan_, 8,629 h.p., and the _Neptune_, 8,800 h.p.
This invention, curiously enough, helped in the retention of the
sailing power, by leaving the decks unencumbered by engine houses and
paddle-boxes, so that when the engines were not in use the vessels
could be kept under sail only, to gladden the hearts of the adherents
of the old school. It also hastened the abolition of sail, for it
showed that the machinery could be placed below the water-line, and
when armoured sides and protecting decks were introduced sails were
dispensed with altogether.
The trunk engine remained a favourite model until it became impossible
to keep the trunks in a steam-tight condition owing to the adoption
of high-pressure steam. The use of a geared wheel for multiplying the
number of the revolutions of the screw shaft was continued until the
crank shaft could be connected direct to the screw shafting. Up to
about 1860 horizontal engines were the rule in warships, and though
not particularly economical in the matter of fuel, they were a great
improvement on the type which had been so useful for paddle engines.
Surface condensation became general about 1860, and made possible the
introduction of compound engines and cylindrical boilers. The old
flat-sided boilers were retained when surface condensation was first
introduced, but additional stays were added to enable them to stand the
increased steam pressure which had by now advanced from 4 lb. to the
square inch, at which it was deemed effective in the early days of the
steamship, to 30 to 35 lb. to the square inch.
The warship of the “perfect sailing ship type,” with the engines
as little conspicuous as possible, remained in favour until the
experiences of the British and French fleets in the Crimea and the
Baltic compelled the abandonment of all the theories and practices
which had been nursed for years; while the innovations which were made
at the time of the American Civil War brought about the introduction
of types of vessels which were about as unlike the historical wooden
walls, the growth of centuries, as anything could well be.
Some years ago, when visiting the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the writer was
discussing with the officers in charge there the effects of the war
between the Northern and Southern States, and the expedients tried by
the two sides, upon warship construction, irrespective of generally
accepted theories and the opinions of the experts.
“Happy is the nation that has no precedents,” was the sententious
comment of an American officer.