NIR EMERSON TENNENT

SIR

entered the lists as the champion of Mr. Whitworth at an unfortunate moment. From last January twelvemonth till four weeks ago, an official committee had been sitting in vain, endeavouring to get the 70-pounders from Mr. Whitworth, of which Sir Emerson, at p. 18, was presenting the public with a picture. Meanwhile, a muzzle-loader of eight or ten times that size had been produced by Sir William Armstrong, and fired with success. If, however, Sir Emerson chose for purposes of his own to appear as a literary counsel for this or that Ordnance Company, no one could have complained. The real charge made against him in these pages is, that he has overstept the limits of fair and lawful advocacy. Early in his career the youngest advocate in Westminster Hall learns the wholesome lesson that, comment as he may upon evidence, he must not misstate it. Under a profession of neutrality, and an air of candid good nature, the Story of the Guns is built up upon a wholesale iseries of suppressions, distortions, and misquotations of printed evidence happily exceptional in literary controversy. Grave and damning as is the accusation, those who peruse this paper will be able to judge before its close whether it is literally true.

It was not till recently that Mr. Whitworth became a constructor of guns. Up to the year 1858 he only rifled blocks of metal supplied to him by the Government. The polygonal system of rifling, coupled with a mechanically fitting projectile, is said by its opponents to throw upon the gun the strain, which, in some systems, is borne by the yielding coating of the shot. To get a gun to support heavy charges of powder is however with all artillerists the problem of the day. To solve it Sir William Armstrong adopts the coil system, upon which

he builds breech-loading or muzzleloading guns indiscriminately up to a certain size, beyond which he confines himself to his shunt muzzleloaders. Mr. Whitworth professes in turn to obtain the necessary strength by using steel in a mild form. The real history of his guns may be extracted with laborious research from the depths of the last Blue-books. But as it is certainly not to be found in Sir Emerson's Story of the Guns, it may with advantage be detailed here. The following is a tolerably correct list of the guns of any size to which Mr. Whitworth since 1858 has given his name, with the exception, of course, of those now on trial before the Armstrong and Whitworth Committee, the merits of which we shall not attempt to prejudge:

1. Field-guns and howitzers (24pounders) supplied by the Government to Mr. Whitworth in block in 1856-8, and rifled by him. Some of these brass guns competed unsuccessfully against the Armstrong coil guns in the latter year. About 650 rounds in all seem to have been fired from them. Mr. Whitworth, however, never produced any system of fuses and shells to use with them. The Duke of Cambridge (Bluebook, 1233) said in July last, 'We have no shell* at all of Mr. Whitworth's for field-guns.'

2. Two cast-iron 32-pounders, and one 68-pounder, also cast-iron (1858). The gun fired at the Alfred in 1858, mentioned by Sir Emerson Tennent, was the latter of the two. All these guns burst after a few rounds none lasting more than seven, (App. 386, 416). The Government now determined to supply Mr. Whitworth with no more castiron blocks (Bluebook, 2469, App. 386).

3. Early in 1860 Mr. Whitworth produced a steel 12-pounder and a steel 80-pounder, hooped with wrought iron. Both of these guns

were breech-loaders. The 12-pounder still exists. The 80-pounder is the gun fired at Southport, 1860, whose praises are sung by Sir Emerson. After 60 rounds at most it burst also (Appendix, p. 435; ibid, p. 554).

4. In 1861 the Government

ordered of Mr. Whitworth twelve 12-pounders. He delivered four brass guns. They were condemned at Shorncliffe after 200 rounds.

5. Two 70-pounders (ibid, 2067), made entirely at Woolwich on the Armstrong coil system, were made for Mr. Whitworth (1861), and rifled on his plan. One of these has never been fired at all. The other is the gun that penetrated the Warrior target, as related by Sir Emerson (ibid, 2071).

6. Coils and trunnions for two other guns were made for Mr. Whitworth about the same date on the same system at the same factory, Mr. Whitworth supplying the steel barrel (2055).

The first gun burst its steel barrel, and was withdrawn (2056). The second was strengthened by fresh coils, and has fired about 300 rounds. Mr. Whitworth has never allowed this gun to be fired at iron plates, and has repeatedly asked for a coil barrel to replace the steel one (2071).

7. Lastly, in 1861, the 7-inch gun-a gun made for Mr. Whitworth on the coil system at Woolwich, and rifled on the polygonal system. This is the piece of which Sir Emerson describes the performances at length.

It will thus be seen that the only achievements effected by Mr. Whitworth since 1860 (when his steel gun burst) down to the date of the Story of the Guns, had been effected by borrowing the system of Sir William Armstrong, which he and Sir Emerson Tennent so loudly condemn. Such are the materials on which a narrative of the Whitworth gun must be built, if it was to be a veritable one. Let us now see how Sir Emerson contrives to build a superstructure of 350 pages on this unpromising foundation.

No part of his book contains a weightier charge than that in which Sir Emerson attacks the justice and impartiality of the executive to

wards his client. In the autumn of 1858 the Armstrong gun and the Whitworth gun were both submitted to the Committee appointed upon Rifled Cannon,. Nearly four years after, Mr. Whitworth, seemingly on a sudden inspiration, wrote to the Times, complaining that the trial was one-sided and unfair. The charge may not, in Sir Emerson's opinion, affect the honour of the Committee; but it affects deeply their reputation as good and efficient officers. Before the House of Commons' Committee, 1863, the matter was sifted thoroughly. It is time therefore to consider Sir Emerson's grounds for returning to the calumny, and in so doing we will begin with the material portion of Mr. Whitworth's original letter of Nov. 8th, 1862.

From the evidence taken by the House of Commons, it appears that a programme of the trials of the Armstrong gun, proposed to be made in 1858, was previously submitted to Sir William by the Committee, and he consented to it, stipulating, however, that he should be allowed to co-operate personally or by his assistants. No such opportunity was afforded to me, no programme was furnished to me, nor was I even allowed to be present at the trial of my own guns.

Repeated as it has been with strange pertinacity by Mr. Whitworth's friends, and reiterated as we shall see by Sir Emerson, this statement is absolutely untrue. The part relating to the programme Mr. Whitworth has himself withdrawn (Bluebook, 2527). As to the rest, letters are extant-one of which is printed at length in the Bluebook, (p. 401)-inviting Mr. Whitworth's attendance: he was actually seen at most of the trials, if not at all of them; and if he was ever absent it was by his own default.

149. Captain Jervis.-Is it also correctly stated by Mr. Whitworth, that he was not allowed to be present at the trial of his own guns?

Sir W. Wiseman.-No, I can show from the letter-book that we have written to Mr. Whitworth, naming the hours during which the tides would answer for practice, during several days, and requesting him to name the time that would be most convenient for him to attend.

Though the charge against the Committee of 1858 thus fell to the ground, Mr. Whitworth did not publish his apology in the same conspicuous place in which he published his complaint. The one was published in the Times, he left the other buried in the Bluebook. Sir Emerson, with strange care, digs up from the Bluebook again the original libel, without noticing its subsequent retractation a few paragraphs further on, and without saying one word as to its complete and summary refutation on the very next sheet. These are Sir Emerson's words:

After a very few trials with the Whitworth gun, at which Mr. Whitworth states that he had had no opportunity given him to be present (Bluebook, pp. 2416-7); the Select Committee reported, &c. (Story of the Guns, p. 127).. In a letter to the Times Mr. Whitworth complained that the Committee of 1858 without affording him an opportunity to be present at the comparative trials of his gun, when he would have shown them what it could do should have come to a decision against it, (Story of the Guns, p. 130).

So much for hardship the first. Sir Emerson then travels to a second, urged also for the first time by Mr. Whitworth four years after the event. It relates to the fact that the Committee of 1858 paid no visit to Mr. Whitworth's works. The real reason of this omission is also in evidence. At that time there was nothing to see at Mr. Whitworth's works. He was not a manufacturer of guns, as he himself allows last May (Bluebook, 2431).

He had no gun of his own construction, nor did he propose any system of construction:- -so at least the House of Commons' Committee report, p. iv. Nor had he even a fuse or a loaded shell (ibid, 2378). On the other hand, Sir William Armstrong was

inventor of the coil system of construction, of a system of shells and fuses, and of a mode of rifling. The Committee therefore could not help visiting the Elswick workshop to investigate the novel manufacture of the coil and of the shell. Sir William Wiseman explains this clearly and correctly:-

When we first met, we thought that it would be necessary to visit both Sir William Armstrong's and Mr. Whitworth's manufactories, in order to ascertain their method of manufacturing guns; but we only visited Sir William Armstrong's because we had no proposal from Mr. Whitworth before us for constructing guns at all (p. 127).

This quotation which he gives, Sir Emerson thus criticises :

There is some obscurity in this, as it is not quite intelligible that no proposal of a gun by Mr. Whitworth' should have been before the Committee.

Sir Emerson quietly alters Sir William Wiseman's language in the very act of commenting on it. Sir William Wiseman nowhere says that Mr. Whitworth proposed no gun.' What he says is that Mr. Whitworth did not propose to manufacture or construct any. The House of Commons' Committee confirm the statement in their report (p. iv.). Had the Committee therefore gone to Manchester, they would have gone on a wild-goose chase. Lastly, lest any misapprehension should still remain as to the parity of conditions under which Sir William Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth started, the Secretary of the Rifled Cannon Committee speaks as follows:

I may mention that no member of that Committee, with the exception of the President (who had only met Sir William Armstrong officially), had even a personal acquaintance with him; and I further do not think that any member of that Committee had even seen the gun before they were called upon to report on it, (ibid, 3131).

Such is the evidence on the subject of the fairness of the trials of 1858. Has Sir Emerson Tennent read the Bluebook or not? How is it that, disregarding its contents, and passing them in some places altogether by, he ventures to insinuate against a body of honourable scientific men accusations so ridiculous and so positively disproved?

The Committee which recommended the Armstrong gun in 1858 being thus rudely handled, Sir William Armstrong himself can hardly hope to escape. In 1859 he was appointed Engineer for Rifled Ordnance, in order that he might give his best attention to the maturing and perfecting of his own system -a title that subsequently was developed into that of Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factory. To a considerable extent this gave Sir William Armstrong thenceforward an advantage over other inventors. His gun was adopted: it was manufactured largely; and in presiding over its manufacture he could not but gain that experience which, if his gun had been rejected, he would perhaps never have acquired at all. One thing it has been over and over again proved that his post did not give him-the position of judge or arbitrator over his rivals. He had nothing to do with them. They went before a separate tribunal; nor was he present at the trial of a single invention to which the general scientific public were not freely admitted. With a disregard of the printed evidence that is not pleasing, Sir Emerson does not blush to fling an unworthy imputation at a man of genius, who is known to be as single-minded as he is able.

He was thus constituted the confidential adviser of the Government upon the discoveries of other inventors, as well as of his own-a position of the utmost delicacy and difficulty, and one in which it was hardly possible for its occupant to be regarded as an indifferent witness, or to escape the suspicion of being an interested witness, (Story of the Guns, p. 149).

Other inventors abstained from submitting their plans, through apprehension that they would fail to satisfy the Ordnance Select Committee, of which Sir William Armstrong was the constituted adviser: or else that their drawings and explanations might be made an unfair use of, (p. 150).

A situation which, &c. had the effect of putting him practically on the defensive, and exposed him to the suspicion of looking coldly on suggestions, however palpably for the public good, if they threatened to militate against the accepted superiority of his own productions, (154).

As a natural consequence, it is said that

some of the improvements brought forward by other inventors have been adopted by Sir William Armstrong in perfecting the Government gun, (p. 153).

Sir Emerson, indeed, at page 149, disclaims, on account of the high character of Sir William Armstrong, all idea of imputing to him a consciously unworthy feeling or act, during his tenure of this positiona disclaimer the good faith of which is curiously illustrated by the last of the extracts we have quoted. Yet Atticus himself might admire the subtlety with which from page to page of the Story of the Guns Sir Emerson can manage to

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer. Fortunately for Sir William Armstrong, facts and printed evidence render him independent of Sir Emerson's charitable constructions. All he requires at Sir Emerson's hands is accuracy, not charity. It is a distortion of truth to imply that all that can be said for Sir William is that he never consciously abused such a situation. An honourable man could not have held it. Sir William Armstrong never did. He was not constituted adviser of the Ordnance Select Committee; he was not adviser of the Government upon the discoveries of others; he was not present at the trial of other guns besides his own upon any occasion on which the trials were not open to the scientific public. General St. George, late President of the Ordnance Select Committee, and the present Director of Ordnance, is a witness on the subject whose testimony few will venture to dispute.

2784. Mr. Laird.-If Mr. Whitworth, or any other inventor, sends in any proposal to the War Office, Sir William Armstrong has to report on it according to that definition ?

General St. George.-He never does; such a proposal is not submitted to him; it is invariably sent by the Director of Ordnance to the Ordnance Select Committee.

2786. Do you not think that would deter other inventors from sending in proposals to the department, because Sir William Armstrong, however much he may wish to act impartially, has his own invention, and most people are inclined to promote their own schemes? &c.

Sir Emerson Tennent's candour, indeed, leads him to insert, par parenthèse, that General St. George (2742) and other high-minded officers' consider that Sir William Armstrong never enjoyed any influence prejudicial to the claims of other inventors.' Certainly General St. George says so. But does he say nothing more? Has Sir Emerson not read the more important extracts we have above given, in which the General tells us that Sir William Armstrong never held the very position which Sir Emerson insultingly forces on him? Is the omission of them just conduct? Is it fair? We believe that it will find few apologists and fewer imitators. As for the last imputation-the deadliest and most invidious of all -that Sir William Armstrong has taken advantage of his position to apply, in perfecting the national guns, the plans of other inventors which he has overseen in the discharge of his official duties: Sir Emerson Tennent does not pretend to offer evidence in support of it. No Bluebooks are referred to-no names given. He has left the pleasant suggestion naked and unsup

ported, 'It is said.' So let it remain. The character of the Story of the Guns, as an impartial narrative, shall stand or fall by this last ingenuous on dit.

One more misstatement of the same unpardonable description seems to fall under this head. Sir Emerson Tennent distinctly gives us to understand that the Armstrong 40-pounder was introduced into the service by a committee of which Sir William Armstrong was a member. We give verbatim the innuendo. The italics belong to Sir Emerson himself. They are probably designed to speak volumes, for we find the identical words carefully italicised again upon another page.

The 40-pounder, as already stated, was introduced into the navy in the spring of 1859 by a committee, of which Sir William Armstrong was a member, and in the autumn of the same year the 110-pounder was added to the same service, without the

formality of trial. . In fact it is stated by the Duke of Somerset that Armstrong guns of every calibre were taken into the service without a trial in any instance: except that of the 40-pounder, on which occasion its inventor and Captain Noble (afterwards one of the partners at Elswick) formed two out of the four members of the Committee by whom it was sanctioned, (Story of the Guns, p. 211).

Sir Emerson Tennent does not inform his readers that the Admiralty had already decided on the gun. Then, and not till then, was it referred to Sir William Armstrong and three other officers to determine the weight, the calibre, and minor details. This is explained in evidence twice over by Sir William Armstrong himself; and his statement was confirmed by Captain Hewlett, (3374). The Duke of Somerset (5100) fixes the date of the Admiralty decision in July. The Special Committee do not report till the close of September. Nor need Sir Emerson have read through the evidence of Sir William Armstrong or of Captain Hewlett and the Duke of Somerset to find out the truth. In the front of the Bluebook stands the considered Report of the House of Commons: the language and dates of which show that his insinuation not only is not, but could not by any possibility be true.