onclads, was launched, and every dockyard in France was busy
constructing armour-clads or rebuilding and armouring existing ships.

France had gained a start in the building of the new type of warship. When
the "Dreadnought" was launched, it was said somewhat boastfully that
single-handed she could destroy the whole North Sea fleet of Germany. It
might be more truly said of the "Gloire" that she could have met
single-handed and destroyed the British Channel or Mediterranean Fleet of
the day. It was the moment when tension with France over the Orsini
conspiracy had caused a widespread anticipation of war between that country
and England, and had called the Volunteer force into existence to repel
invasion. But the true defence must be in the command of the sea, and the
first English ironclad, the old "Warrior," was laid down at the Thames
Ironworks. Work was begun in June, 1859, and the ship was launched in
December, 1860. She was modelled on the old steam frigates, for the special
types of modern battleships and armoured cruisers were still in the future.
She was built of iron, with unarmoured ends and 4 1/4-inch iron plating on
a backing of 18 inches of teak over 200 feet amidships of her total length
of 380 feet. There was a race of ironclad building between France and
England, in which the latter won easily, and it was only for a very short
time that our sea supremacy was endangered by the French Emperor's naval
enterprise. But when the English and French fleets entered the Gulf of
Mexico in 1861, our ships were all wooden walls, while the French admiral's
flag flew on the ironclad "Normandie," the first armoured ship that ever
crossed the Atlantic.

Notwithstanding this fact, American writers are fond of saying, and many
Englishmen believe, that the introduction of armoured navies was the
outcome of the American Civil War of the early 'sixties. All that is true
is that the War of Secession gave the world the spectacle of the first
fight between armour-clad ships, and the experiences of that war greatly
influenced the direction taken in the general policy of designers of
ironclad warships.

[Illustration: H.M.S. WARRIOR, THE FIRST BRITISH IRONCLAD]

Towards the close of the Crimean War a Swedish engineer settled in the
United States, John Ericsson, had sent to the Emperor Napoleon a design for
a small armoured turret-ship of what was afterwards known as the Monitor
type. He wrote to the Emperor that he asked for