PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD.
PART II.
The docks,—of which there are nine in the Portsmouth yard,—nearly all speak of the transition state of our marine affairs. With the exception of two, they are all too short for the long frigates, both iron and wood, which have superseded our towering three-deckers. Like growing boys, these new ships have outgrown their docks, and now the latter must have their tucks let out, if we may be allowed to use a tailor’s image. On two of the docks this operation has been performed, and we saw the famous transport Himalaya, high and dry in one of them, exposing in all her length the beauty of her finely curved lines. The necessity for increasing the dry dock accommodation in this yard is becoming day by day more apparent, as, since the introduction of the iron-plated frigates, it is found that the bottom-cleaning process is required much more frequently than with wooden ships. Both the Warrior and the Black Prince have thus fouled in a very short space of time, and no composition has yet been found effectual against the barnacles and the seaweeds which cling to them. A sheathing of copper, unfortunately, cannot be employed in such ships, inasmuch as the salt water, acting upon the two metals when in contact, would produce a galvanic action which would speedily eat away the copper, as in ordinary galvanic troughs. Some bold speculator has startled the “slow coaches” of the dockyards by proposing to supersede the laborious and costly plan of sheathing her Majesty’s ships with sheets of copper—6,500 of which, we are informed by the guide-book, are required for the bottom of a first-rate, and these must be fastened on with a ton and-a-half of counter-sunk nails—by the simple plan of electro-plating them. To accomplish this, the dock would be turned into a large electro-bath, the vessel of wood would simply be blackleaded, a line of wire from stem to stern would be formed to complete the circuit, and in an incredible short space of time the ship would receive, without further trouble, a clothing of copper from her water-line downwards without break or flaw. The deposition of iron has never been yet managed successfully by means of the electro-type process: otherwise we may imagine our teak-built frigates thus armed with plates of metal to any required thickness, in a single night, without the weakening process of bolting in! Our great war-ships would then go to battle fully armed in coats of mail, and the din of “closing rivets up,” would be quietly and noiselessly performed by the blue spark of electricity alone.
We have not time to accompany the reader through the smithery, as there really is nothing in all this establishment which differs much from great private shops of the same kind. The Admiralty have lately taken to manufacture their own armour-plates, but we have not heard that they have succeeded in producing better work than, or indeed so good as, the Thames Iron Company and other establishments.
The old Sultan, 74, hulk, has for months been used as a target-ship for the trial of these plates, sent by different iron-masters; and the significant attentions of 68-pounders, at 200 yards’ range, are visible enough on her sides. Some of her plates are merely dented, others are starred like a sheet of glass; others, again, have been smashed and partly detached from their fastenings. An inspection of the dark hold of the old ship shows most strikingly the effect of the shot upon her timbers. In some places the ball has gone through both sides; in others, huge fractures appear, and the solid oak, in most cases, has been broken into “matchwood.” We do not speak figuratively, but literally; the ship-side, in some places, being so shattered around the shot-holes that it has crumbled to pieces like “touch-wood.”
On a fine breezy day, a sail up the harbour is the proper addendum to an inspection of the dockyard. If we take a boat at the “hard,” that spot beloved by Jews and crimps, and the richest perhaps in public-houses of any like-sized spots in the world, our destination is sure to be suspected to be the old Victory. There she lies together with her companion-training ship, the Britannia,—two models of the old men-of-war of the days of our grandfathers, “when ships were ships,” as the Old Salt remarked who rowed me towards the mighty old hull.
There is something about the build of these old three-deckers that looks more majestic than even larger ships of a later build—the “tumbling-in” of their sides gives a proud, defiant look to them which we miss in the straighter sides of newer models. Compare them, for instance, with the Duke of Wellington, or the Victoria and Albert, the three leviathans riding at anchor higher up the harbour; each of these fine ships is at least a third larger than Nelson’s old ship, but to our eye they do not make such a proud appearance when viewed from a distance. These latter ships are the last efforts of a bygone age; the paint is scarcely dry upon their sides; the masts of the two latter have, if we mistake not, never been shipped, yet they are as completely things of the past as the Royal Harry. Their large bulk, instead of being a source of strength to them, is a cause of weakness. A single shell pitched into their hulls from a mimic gunboat by an Armstrong at a mile’s distance would as effectually demolish them as Goliath was demolished by the smooth stone from David’s sling. What will they do with these bulky toys, just completed at a cost of a quarter of a million each? Is it their fate to be cut down to the water’s edge, like the Royal Sovereign? We fear so, for they will never ride the waters like a thing of life again in their present form. It is positively disheartening to sail up the harbour and see ship after ship past and gone ere it has sailed a league. We cannot say, like Beau Brummel’s valet, as he carried away an armful of crumpled cravats, “these are our failures;” but we really should be glad to know when we have a ship that we can really call a ship, and not a mere helpless target for those horrid guns, which go, bang, bang, from the Stork gun-boat higher up the harbour; for possibly, as we listen, Captain Coles’s Cupola has been smashed into “a cocked hat” by steel-headed bolts.
