UNARMOURED SHIPS.
The duties and services, which vessels of war are required to perform, are so various in their nature that it is altogether impossible that the same classes of ships can be advantageously employed, both in line of battle and for the police of the seas. It will accordingly be more convenient, in discussing the shipbuilding policy of the Navy, to divide the armoured from the unarmoured classes.
In the following pages it is proposed to consider what types are best adapted for the protection of commerce, and for maintaining our communications in time of war. These are duties for which speed, both under sail and steam, and seaworthiness under every condition of weather—in short, all the qualities which tend to make a ship ubiquitous—are essential. If it is desired to combine them with moderate tonnage, armour must be abandoned.
Unarmoured ships indispensable.The construction of an armoured fleet does not make unarmoured ships the less necessary. The House of Commons was cautioned by Lord Clarence Paget, in moving the Naval Estimates in 1864, that it would be a mere deception of the public to pretend that the in-