Man on the Ocean Part 9

At the close of the civil war, America possessed a fine fleet of monitors, of which scarcely any now remain. For the time they seemed all but impregnable to shot and sh.e.l.l; but they were built by contract, of unseasoned wood, and in the course of ten or twelve years yielded to natural decay. But the _Brooklyn_ and the _Ohio_, both fine examples of naval architecture, still survive to maintain, in so far as two ships can, America's maritime prestige.

A chapter treating of ironclads would, we think, be incomplete without allusion made to the loss of the _Captain_, whose terrible fate in 1870 has caused a mournful interest to be attached to that vessel.

The _Captain_ was 320 feet in length and 53 feet broad. Her armour-plating reached to five feet below the water-line. Opposite the turrets her plating was eight inches in thickness and seven inches in other parts. The ship was furnished with two screws, placed side by side. The screws were available for steering, and thus the vessel could be governed without the rudder. The _Captain_ was fully rigged, and could carry a large spread of canvas.

The special characteristic of the ship was her revolving turrets. Each turret was 27 feet in diameter on the outside and 22 feet 6 inches on the inside. The walls of the turrets were therefore 2 feet 3 inches thick; and one half of this thickness was composed of iron. The turrets were revolved by separate engines, but they could also be turned, if occasion required, by hand-labour. Two Armstrong twenty-five ton guns, throwing six hundred pound shot, were placed in each turret. The ship was built after designs by Captain Coles--the architect also of the _Monarch_.

On her first sea-voyage the _Captain_ showed, apparently, such excellent sea-going qualities that her architect and the contractors, the Messrs.

Laird, were quite satisfied as to her safety in mid-ocean. In the autumn of 1870 she accompanied the fleet on a cruise; and on the 6th of September, shortly after midnight, foundered off Cape Finisterre. The whole crew were lost, with the exception of nineteen men, and among those who perished was Captain Coles himself, Captain Burgoyne, the commander of the ship, and a son of the then First Lord of the Admiralty--Mr Childers. It is unnecessary to recall to the memory of the adult among my readers the deep feeling of pity and gloom spread by this awful disaster throughout Great Britain.

The night on which the _Captain_ foundered was no doubt a somewhat rough one, with squalls and a heavy sea on; but it was not merely the force of the storm which overwhelmed the vessel.

Mr James May, a surviving gunner of the ill-fated ship, gave a sufficiently clear account of the foundering of the vessel. Soon after midnight he was awakened from sleep by a noise and a feeling that the ship was uneasy. Rising, and taking with him a lamp, he proceeded to the after-turret to see if the guns were all right. Everything was secure enough there; but he had hardly finished his examination when he felt the vessel heel steadily over, a heavy sea struck her on the weather-port, the water rushed into the turret, and May presently found himself in the water.

He swam to the pinnace, which he perceived floating bottom upwards, and there he was presently joined by Captain Burgoyne and several others of the crew. Then he beheld the vessel turn over and go down, stern first; the whole catastrophe being over in a few minutes. The launch was drifting a few yards off, and May called out to his comrades, "Jump, men! it is our last chance." May with three others succeeded in reaching the boat, in which fifteen of the remainder of the crew also found a refuge. It is uncertain whether poor Captain Burgoyne remained in the pinnace or failed to reach the launch.

The nineteen survivors, after a hard row of twelve hours, without food or drink, landed at Cape Finisterre, where they were hospitably received and cared for by the people. A court-martial was held in due course to investigate the cause of the disaster. Into the details of the evidence it is impossible here to enter, but it was sufficiently proved that there were grave faults in the _Captain's_ construction,--faults which, as is unfortunately too often the case, were not discovered by such calculations as were made before the ship started on what may be said to have been her first, as it was her last, cruise. It had, however, been noticed by some that the vessel was about a foot and a half deeper in the water than she should have been--that her free-board, in a word, instead of being eight feet above the water, as was designed, was only six feet six inches; and it needs but a very slight knowledge of marine matters to understand how this difference would materially prejudice the stability of such a vessel as the _Captain_.

If it has been the reader's chance, as it has been ours, to visit anyone of our great naval a.r.s.enals--especially Portsmouth or Plymouth--he cannot have failed of being struck with the gallant and splendid appearance presented by many of our ships of war; but he must likewise have been affected with feelings the reverse of admiration by more than one type of modern ironclads. No one who admires a real ship, be it of wood or of iron--a stately frigate in full sail before a favouring wind--can at the same time admire a monitor. Many persons, in truth, will refuse to regard a turret-ship as a ship at all. It overturns our every notion of what a ship should look like. A low, black, mastless, raft-like, cruel-looking machine, without the faintest pretension to form or comeliness, a turret-ship is simply a fighting-engine, a floating battery--an ingenious and formidable instrument of death and destruction, no doubt, but nothing more. Yet these are among the leading war-ships of the present, and, as far as can at present be seen, of the immediate future; and on these we must depend for the protection of our sh.o.r.es should they ever be threatened.

And yet, great as is the annual cost of our navy, and great as is the amount of ingenuity spent in the construction of new and novel ships of war--each designed to be more impregnable and more formidable than its predecessor--our navy is at this moment in somewhat of an unsettled and transitory state. Changes in the construction of ironclads are every year taking place, and considerable difference of opinion exists among our highest naval authorities upon important points in marine architecture. Ships of war have now to contend with such formidable enemies in the shape of guns, torpedoes, and other engines of terribly destructive power, that it is difficult to say at present which will eventually triumph. One of the old wooden ships placed beside a modern ironclad is as a child's toy battery compared with Gibraltar; and yet it can hardly be said that the nation has the same feeling of confidence and security in our present ships which it reposed in the vessels which Nelson so often led to victory; for it must be long ere the fate of the _Captain_ and the _Vanguard_ is entirely forgotten.

Of this, however, we may, we think, at least rest a.s.sured, that, however dubious we may be in regard to some of the novelties and presumed improvements that are being from time to time introduced in naval architecture, England is well abreast of the age in maritime matters; if her ships be not absolutely perfect, and proof against every form of danger, they are at least equal to those of any other nation. We need a strong, a very strong navy; and as a fact our naval resources are nearly equal to the combined naval strength of Europe.

A somewhat different condition of things will need to come about from that which at present exists among the nations of the world ere England can afford to decrease her naval armaments; and until the Great Powers of the world agree to settle their disputes by some other means than by "wager of battle," and are resolved to "war no more," probably the best and only way for her is to keep herself as strongly and perfectly armed as possible. It is this that has probably helped, at any rate, to secure so long and uninterrupted peace for our sh.o.r.es; and to try a different and opposite course would, to say the least, be a risk. It is upon her navy, as all the world knows, that England depends for defence and security. To be weak in our navy would be to be weak throughout all our armour. Our navy is at present, we would fain hope, a peace-weapon in our hands--a shield, not a sword; and while it is such, the stronger and more flawless it is, the better for us, and perhaps for the world at large. This may strike the reader as a somewhat vain-glorious, "spread-eagle" way of putting the case; but if he look at the matter fairly and impartially, we think he will admit that there is some truth in our statement.

Before closing this chapter, a word or two must be said descriptive of that fell foe to ships of war, the torpedo, though s.p.a.ce demands that our reference should be brief. Almost all modern ships of war are constructed with false bottoms, designed especially to protect them against torpedoes. There are many different forms of torpedoes, employed in a variety of ways. A torpedo may be described as a submarine exploding apparatus. It may contain from thirty to as much as five hundred pounds of gunpowder; and the explosion is effected either by means of electricity, or by a spring and a detonating substance when the engine comes in contact with a ship. Some kinds of torpedoes rest on the bottom of the sea, while others are anch.o.r.ed and float suspended in the water. If a vessel strikes against one of these terrible engines, she is either at once blown to splinters, or a rent is made in her bottom which causes her rapidly to sink.

One type of torpedoes resembles somewhat a fish, and is impelled rapidly through the water by a screw and other machinery. Torpedoes are so constructed as to be able to rise and strike a vessel just at the right moment. When not filled with gunpowder or gun-cotton, dynamite and other explosive substances are used instead for charging these submarine war-engines.

Various methods have been devised to secure ships from torpedoes. Nets are sometimes extended in front of the ship, which catch the torpedoes before they can come in contact with the vessel's bottom. This safeguard was adopted, in many instances with success, by the Federal war-ships when entering Confederate harbours. But a great deal may be done to secure a ship against these terrible engines of destruction by precaution simply, as was proved in the Crimean War, when the Russian torpedoes did little or no damage to our ships, by reason of the unceasing watchfulness maintained on board.

During the late war between Russia and Turkey one of the most daring exploits of the campaign was an attack by a Russian squadron of torpedo-boats on the Turkish monitor _Hifse Rahman_. The flotilla comprised four ships, the _Czarevich_, the _Xenia_, the _Czarevna_, and the _Djirid_. The two first named began the attack, the _Czarevna_ and the _Djirid_ holding themselves in reserve until their a.s.sistance should be wanted.

The launches were equipped with strong iron awnings which shielded their crews from the enemy's fire. Each boat was armed with two torpedoes, fastened to the end of long spars projected over the bulwarks and working on pivots. The torpedoes could be detached from the spars when occasion demanded; while long chains were secured to the missiles, by which they were attached to the enemy's vessel, as well as to the wire of a galvanic battery fastened round the waist of the commander of the launch. This battery was the means by which the torpedo was exploded.

The flotilla left the Roumanian side of the Danube on the 25th of June 1877 at about midnight, and in something less than an hour the _Hifse Rahman_ loomed in sight, a shadowy ma.s.s on the dark waters. The approach of the torpedo-boats was almost noiseless, and the croaking of the frogs was said to have further favoured the Russians by drowning the sound of the engines, so that those on board the monitor were not aware of their enemy's propinquity until the launches were almost alongside.

The sentry at once challenged, when Lieutenant Doubarsoff, the commander of the _Czarevich_, answered "Friends." But his speech betrayed him; the alarm was spread; and the _Hifse Rahman_ opened a sharp fire upon the launches. But Lieutenant Doubarsoff succeeded in attaching his torpedo-chain to a rope hanging at the monitor's bows, and then rapidly backed his little vessel and fired the torpedo. A tremendous explosion; a column of water shot up into the air, and the launch was nearly swamped! A breach had, however, been made in the _Hifse Rahman's_ bulwarks.

The other monitors were now thoroughly alive to their danger, and the Russian launches had to sustain a deadly cannonade, upon which Lieutenant Doubarsoff ordered Lieutenant Schestakoff to bring up his launch, the _Xenia_, and apply a second torpedo, which the latter was able to do, attaching the missile amidships of the Turkish vessel. The fate of the _Hifse Rahman_ was now sealed, and in a few minutes she sank.

The Russian launches succeeded in getting clear of their enemy again without losing a single man, and thus ended the first torpedo expedition ever made against an enemy's ironclads, but which may, as a writer describing the event says, "end in completely revolutionising our present system of monster iron walls." The Grand Cross of Saint George was awarded to Lieutenants Doubarsoff and Schestakoff for this intrepid and successful exploit.

s.p.a.ce is not left us to do more than revert for a moment to what is perhaps the deadliest weapon of offensive naval warfare yet devised,-- rams. Some experts maintain that nothing can match the power of the ram of a modern ironclad skilfully handled; and a well-known naval authority has declared that the use of the guns in a naval action should be merely preliminary to that of the ram--in other words, that all effort should be concentrated upon making an opportunity of using the ram.

We close this chapter by recalling the reader's attention to a feature in modern war-ships already alluded to, and which indeed the whole course of our remarks upon this subject points to--the almost universal use of machinery in modern naval tactics. Most a.s.suredly in modern sea-warfare it may be said, in the Laureate's words--used by him, of course, with a very different sense--that "the individual dwindles," so that the prediction, which some of our readers may remember was once made by a First Lord of the Admiralty, seems not unlikely one day to become sober fact--that the time will come when we shall no longer require sailors, because all that our warships will need will be stokers and artillerymen. Whether this is a consummation to be desired we are not careful here to p.r.o.nounce.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

ORIGINS OF STEAMSHIPS--OCEAN-STEAMERS, ETCETERA.

As we have been led, in writing about ships of the navy, to refer to steam, we turn aside at this point to treat of that tremendous motive-power.

One night, in the year 1807, a terrible sight was witnessed by the inhabitants of the banks of the river Hudson in America.

Men love what is marvellous, and they will go a long distance out of their way to see that which is terrific and horrible; but on the night in question there was no need to go far. The farmers had only to look out of their windows, and the sailors of the shipping had only to lift their heads above the bulwarks, to behold a sight that appalled the stoutest hearted, and caused the very hair on the craniums of the timid to stand on end.

The object that created so much consternation was--a "monster of the deep!" At some parts of the river, men could not tell what it was like, for the night was dark when it pa.s.sed, but a dark, shadowy idea they obtained by the light of the fire which the creature vomited from its jaws; and they formed a tremendous conception of its size and power from the speed at which it travelled, the splashing which it made, and the hideous groans with which it burdened the night-air.

This "fiery monster of the deep" was the _first_ river-steamer, the _Clermont_!

Before going further into the details of this the first of a cla.s.s of ships which have, within the last fifty years, almost completely changed the whole system of navigation, let us take a cursory glance at the first attempts made to propel ships by means of steam.

The subject has occupied mankind much longer than many people suppose.

So long ago as the year 1543, a naval captain of Spain applied an engine to a ship of about two hundred tons, and succeeded in moving it at the rate of about two miles an hour. The nature of his engine the captain kept secret; but it was noted that part of it consisted of a caldron of boiling water.

This we are told by Thomas Gonzales, the director of the Royal Archives of Simancas; but his veracity is now called in question,--at any rate, nothing further was afterwards heard of the discovery.

The first authentic record we have of steam navigation occurs in a work written by the Marquis of Worcester in 1665, in which allusion is made to the application of engines to boats and ships, which would "draw them up rivers against the stream, and, if need be, pa.s.s London Bridge against the current, at low-water."

Many attempts, more or less successful, were made by ingenious men from time to time. Papin of France in 1690 constructed a steamboat, the success of which may be gathered from the fact that it was ultimately broken up by enraged and jealous watermen! Jonathan Hulls in 1736, and M. Genevois in 1759, were each successful, to a certain extent, in constructing working models, but nothing definite resulted from their labours. Yet we would not be understood to undervalue the achievements of such men. On the contrary, it is by the successive discoveries of such inquiring and philosophical men that grand results are at last attained. The magnificent structures that crowd the ocean were not the creations of one era, or the product of one stupendous mind. They are the result of the labours of thousands of men whose names have never been known to fame.

The men who, working upon the materials supplied by preceding generations, brought the propulsion of boats by steam nearest to perfection, _just before_ the commencement of navigation, were Mr Miller of Dumfries, Mr Taylor, his friend, and tutor in his family, and Mr Symington. All of these were, in a very important degree, instrumental in ushering in the great event. Symington, in 1788, fitted an engine to a large boat, in which he attained the speed of seven miles an hour.

The man to whom the credit belongs of introducing _steam navigation_ is undoubtedly Mr Fulton of America. This gentleman, who was contemporary with those just mentioned, visited France and England, in the former of which countries he endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to carry out his projects, while in the latter he met with Symington, and obtained much valuable information from him.

We have no sympathy whatever with those who seem to rake in to the credit of their own country every discovery and invention they possibly or plausibly can. We did much _towards_ the commencement of steam navigation, but we did not begin it. We pushed considerably in advance of other nations in the invention of apparatus by which boats might be propelled by steam; we constructed models, tried it on a small scale, and found the thing to answer admirably: but we rested there.

Meanwhile, an enterprising American came and saw our achievements, ordered an engine in England, carried it across the Atlantic, and _commenced_ the era of steam navigation, on the river Hudson, by building and launching:

THE FIRST STEAMER.

Robert Fulton, in conjunction with Chancellor Livingston of America, planned, built, and launched a boat in the spring of 1807, which they named the _Clermont_. It was propelled by steam, and averaged the rate of five miles an hour on its first voyage from New York to Albany, a distance of nearly one hundred and fifty miles.

All discoveries and novelties, great and small, are treated with ridicule at first by the ma.s.s of mankind, so it is not a matter of wonder that the crowds which flocked to the wharf to see the _Clermont_ start on her first trip were somewhat satirical and jocose in their remarks. But when the steam was turned on, and they heard the first of that series of snorts that was destined ere long to shake the trembling air of land and sea, and saw the great, uncouth paddle-wheels revolve powerfully in the water and churn it into foam, a shout, tinged doubtless with prophetic fervour, greeted the triumphant engineer as his little steamboat darted from the sh.o.r.e.

Colden, in his Life of Fulton, speaks thus of the _Clermont's_ first voyage:--

"She excited the astonishment of the inhabitants of the sh.o.r.es of the Hudson, many of whom had not heard even of an engine, much less of a steamboat. There were many descriptions of the effects of her first appearance upon the people of the banks of the river.

"Some of these were ridiculous, but some of them were of such a character as nothing but an object of real grandeur could have excited.

She was described by some, who had indistinctly seen her pa.s.sing in the night, as a monster moving on the waters, defying the winds and tide and breathing flames and smoke! She had the most terrific appearance from other vessels which were navigating the river when she was making her pa.s.sage. The first steamboat (as others yet do) used dry pine wood for fuel, which sends forth a column of ignited vapour many feet above the flue, and, whenever the fire is stirred, a galaxy of sparks fly off, which, in the night, have a very brilliant and beautiful appearance.

"This uncommon light first attracted the attention of the crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and tide, which were adverse to its approach, they saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming towards them; and when it came so near that the noise of the machinery and paddles was heard, the crews--if what was said in the newspapers of the time be true--in some instances shrank beneath their decks from the terrific sight, and left their vessels to go on sh.o.r.e; whilst others prostrated themselves, and besought Providence to protect them from the approaches of the horrible monster which was marching on the tide, and lighting its path by the fires that it vomited!" The _Clermont_ became a regular pa.s.senger boat on the Hudson; and the progress of steam navigation continued to advance, until nearly all the navigable rivers of the world, and the great ocean itself, were covered with these clanking ships of commerce, which have added more to the comfort, the wealth, and the power of man--the power of doing good as well as evil-- than the feeble human mind can conceive.

THE COMET.