modern warfare to the torpedo-cruiser. The terrible character of the
attack, the comparative smallness of the vessel making it, and the
large demands upon the nerve of the assailant, are the chief points of
resemblance; the great points of difference are the comparative
certainty with which the modern vessel can be handled, which is partly
met by the same advantage in the iron-clad over the old ship-
of-the-line, and the instantaneousness of the injury by torpedo, whose
attack fails or succeeds at once, whereas that of the fire-ship
required time for effecting the object, which in both cases is total
destruction of the hostile ship, instead of crippling or otherwise
reducing it. An appreciation of the character of fire-ships, of the
circumstances under which they attained their greatest usefulness, and
of the causes which led to their disappearance, may perhaps help in
the decision to which nations must come as to whether the
torpedo-cruiser, pure and simple, is a type of weapon destined to
survive in fleets.

A French officer, who has been examining the records of the French
navy, states that the fire-ship first appears, incorporated as an arm
of the fleet, in 1636.

"Whether specially built for the purpose, or whether altered from
other purposes to be fitted for their particular end, they received a
special equipment. The command was given to officers not noble, with
the grade of captain of fire-ship. Five subordinate officers and
twenty-five seamen made up the crew. Easily known by grappling-irons
which were always fitted to their yards, the fire-ship saw its role
growing less in the early years of the eighteenth century. It was
finally to disappear from the fleets _whose speed it delayed
and whose evolutions were by it complicated_. As the ships-of-war