SIR FREDERIC SMITHwished to call the attention of the Secretary to the Admiralty to the reply of Rear Admiral R. S. Robinson to question No. 629, put to him by the Commissioners on the National Defences on the 28th of April; and to ask him, whether any experiments had been made to ascertain the power of resistance of 5½ inches of iron backed by 9 inches of teak to the heaviest guns. He wished also to ask the noble Lord whether the attention of the Admiralty had been called to the fact that the French were plating their iron ships with thicker metal at the water-line?
§ LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, that experiments had been made of the nature in question, and in a few days the Iron Plate Committee would make a Report, giving the result. When that Report was received, he should be better able to answer the question of his hon. and gallant Friend. The Admiralty were alive to the fact that some of the French vessels were being constructed of thicker metal at the water-line than elsewhere, and the Admiralty were, to a certain extent, adopting the same plan.