commercial use of steam-vessels, before the naval
department possessed even a tug-boat. Hence the mischievous economy
manifested by the purchase of worthless merchant steamers; hence the
subsequent parsimonious project of building small steam-vessels fitted
with engines immersed beyond their bearing, and deficient in every
requisite for purposes of war. I am not one of those, my lord, who deem
it advantageous to act on the belief that one Englishman can beat two
Frenchmen. I am inclined to doubt whether a practical demonstration of
that saying might not be attended with disastrous consequences. Long
habitude reared experienced British officers, who are now replaced by
others who possess less nautical skill, and are nearer on a par with
those of France, in regard to whose education every pains has been taken
by its Government. I do not presume to advise that your lordship should
adopt changes precipitately, nor without consulting those who may be
most competent to judge; no, nor even then that the best measures should
be prematurely disclosed, so as to give intimation to other nations of
the vast increase of power which may suddenly be rendered available. But
I venture to suggest that you may quietly prepare the means of effecting
purposes which neither the ordinary ships of war nor the present
steam-ships in the navy can accomplish. Permanent blockades, my lord,
are now quite out of the question; and so, in my opinion, are all our
ordinary naval tactics. A couple of heavy line-of-battle ships, suddenly
fitted, on the outbreak of war, with adequate steam-power, would decide
the successful result of a general action; and I am assured that I could
show your lordship how to fit a steam-ship which, in scouring the
Channel or ranging the coast, could take or destroy every steam-ship
belonging to France that came within view."

That offer was accepted by the Earl of Haddington, who, being at
Portsmouth in August, made personal inspection of some experiments in
which Lord Dundonald was there engaging; and the result of that
inspection was that he promptly arranged for the introduction, at the
public expense, of the rotary engine in the _Firefly_, a small
steam-vessel which, like many others, the Government had bought and
found useless, by reason of its clumsy machinery. In her, with no more
than the usual delay occasioned by the co-operation of official routine
with private enterprise, in which Lord Dundonald had the assistance