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Appendix No. 4.

HONG KONG,

(Confidential.) My Lord,

338

Inclosure 3 in No. 100.

Governor Sir J. P. Hennessy to the Earl of Kimberley.

Government House, Hong Kong, January 15, 1881

I HAVE the honour to report that on the 6th instant, on the invitation of Admiral Coote, I made a trial trip in Her Majesty's ship "Wivern," and found her, as far as I am capable of judging, a most efficient ship for the object for which Her Majesty's Government have sent her to the Colony, that is, for harbour and colonial defence. For that object I believe her to be of more value than a regiment cf soldiers.

2. I inclose, for your Lordship's information, an account of the trip and gunnery practice extracted from one of the local newspapers.

3. In addition to the Naval Commander-in-chief on the station, Admiral Coote, there were present Commodore Smith, Captain Cleveland, of the "Iron Duke," and the principal gunnery officers from the large fleet now in harbour. Major-General Donovan was represented by his Aide-de-camp, Captain Barton.

4. I should be glad if Her Majesty's Government would allow me to take steps, in concert with the naval authorities on the station, to have a permanent crew put on board her and properly trained. For this trial trip the crew was borrowed from the "Iron Duke." If this were done I should probably be able, after consulting with the officer in command of the troops, to recommend the removal of a wing of the European regiment now stationed in Hong Kong.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

J. POPE HENNESSY.

Inclosure 4 in No. 100.

Extract from the Hong Kong "Daily Press" of January 8, 1881.

GUNNERY AND STEAM TRIAL OF HER MAJESTY'S SHIP " WIVERN."

(By our Special Commissioner.)

THE "Wivern," 4, iron-clad turret ship, in charge of Commander John G. Jones, was taken outside for a gunnery and steam trial on Thursday morning. Governor Sir John Pope Hennessy went out to witness the target practice, and his Excellency was accompanied by Admiral Coote, C.B., Commodore Smith, Captain Cleveland, Flag-Lieutenant W. H. Maitland-Dougall, and Captain Barton, Aide-de-camp to the Major-General Commanding; and a number of gunnery officers from the fleet now in harbour. Mr. R. H. Sleeman, Inspector of Machinery, and Mr. George Fitzgerald, Chief Engineer of the "Iron Duke," were also present, but the engines of the "Wivern" were in charge of Mr. L. M. Green, Chief Engineer of the ship.

*

If there is one thing more than another which your Commissioner" regards with a fixed and inveterate antipathy, it is getting up in the middle of the night. Under the impression that there was some connection between ships and tide, and remembering the copy-book text which averred that the latter "waits for no man," I gave orders to be called at 6 A.M., and was punctually roused out at that ghostly hour. There were few things stirring but the cocks and hens; two dissipated looking sparrows had apparently been making a night of it somewhere, and eventually found their way into my verandah; and an asthmatical lukong was dragging his weary limbs down the road as if nine men held him and one drove him; and notwithstanding that my faithful domestic had administered a skilfully compounded "eye-opener," that operation had to be repeated before I could fully appreciate the situation. Somebody, somewhere, has written "Night is the time for rest," evidently knowing nothing about getting up in the middle of it to go on a steam trial. However, preliminary difficulties surmounted, I got to Peddar's Wharf, and soon after ran the gig alongside the gangway of the iron-clad, which was about to go on the cruise referred to above.

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I almost feel that the Wivern" is an old acquaintance, as I used to pass her daily in going from Liverpool to the Cheshire shore at the time she and her sister ship-now the "Scorpion," at Bermuda-were lying together in the Sloyne, in the custody, if I remember rightly, of Captain Jacky" Paynter, of the "Revenge." These two vessels, popularly known through a clever cartoon in Punch" of that period (1863) as "The Laird's rams,' were no doubt built for the Confederates, although it was stated they were intended for some eastern, not western, navy; their names, too, tended to confirm a belief in their eastern destination, as they had been christened "El Tousson" and "El Monassir." Soon after their construction in Laird's yard, at Birkenhead, and just before they were ready for sea, strong representations were made by the Government of the United States, which resulted in the vessels' detention in the Mersey by the British authorities, and after lying there some considerable time, they were eventually purchased by our Government.

The invention of the cupola or turret principle, as applied to war ships, is credited to the late Captain Cowper Coles, who made known the merits of this form of vessel in 1855; but it was not until 1861 that the Admiralty could be prevailed upon to regard the system in a favourable light. In the following year, however, the turret was adopted by Ericson, when he built the Monitor" for the United States' Government during the Civil War, and she gave a rare account of herself in the memorable action with the "Merrimac," just after the latter vessel had succeeded in effecting the destruction of the "Cumberland" and " Congress."

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Although seventeen years old, the "Wivern" is in an excellent state of preservation, nothing

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