1585 the people of the city built a
huge flat-bottomed warship, armoured with heavy iron plates, which they
named the "Finis Belli," a boastful expression of the hope that she would
end the war. An old print of the "Finis Belli" shows a four-masted ship
with a high poop and forecastle, but with a low freeboard amidships. On
this lower deck, taking up half the length of the ship, is an armoured
citadel, with port-holes for four heavy guns on each side. The roof of the
citadel has a high bulwark, loopholed for musketry. On three of the masts
there are also crow's-nests or round tops for musketeers.

Heavily weighted with her armour, the ship had a deep draught of water, and
probably steered badly. In descending the Scheldt to attack the Spaniards
she ran aground in a hopeless position under their batteries, and fell into
the hands of the Spanish commander, the Duke of Parma. He kept the "Finis
Belli" "as a curiosity" till the end of the siege, and then had her
dismantled. If she had scored a success, armoured navies would no doubt
have made their appearance in the seventeenth century.

Between the days of the "Finis Belli" and the coming of the first ironclads
there were numerous projects of inventors. In 1805 a Scotchman, named
Gillespie, proposed the mounting of guns and "ponderous mortars" in
revolving armoured turrets, both in fortifications on shore and on floating
batteries. Two years later Abraham Bloodgood, of New York, designed a
floating battery with an armoured turret. During the war between England
and the United States in 1812 an American engineer, John Steevens, who was
a man in advance of his time, proposed the construction of a
steam-propelled warship, with a ram-bow, and with her guns protected by
shields. He prepared a design, but failed to persuade the Navy Department
that it was practicable. His son, Robert L. Steevens, improved the design,
made experiments with guns, projectiles, and armour plates, and at last in
1842 obtained a vote of Congress for the building of the "Steevens
battery," a low-freeboard ram, steam-propelled, and armed with eight heavy
guns mounted on her centre-line, on turntables protected by armoured
breastworks. The methods of the American navy were very dilatory,
professional opinion was opposed to Steevens, whose project was regarded as
that of a "crank," and the ship was left unfinished for years. She was
still on the stocks when the Civil War began. Then other types came into