§ CAPTAIN BEDFORD PIMasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is true that Her Majesty's ship "Raleigh" has now been commissioned nearly eight months without being employed on the service for which she was intended; that every available space has been filled with ballast to give her stability; that she is now two feet deeper in the water than she ought to be without attaining that stability; and, whether this ship was constructed from designs for which Mr. E. J. Reed, C.B., late Chief Constructor of the Navy, is responsible?
§ MR. HUNT, in reply, said, that the Raleigh was commissioned for the period which the hon. and gallant Member had named, and she had a reduced complement of officers and men. As soon as she was completed, she was employed in the service as a cruising ship. A slight accident occurred to her screw, which rendered a new one necessary. It was not the fact that every available space had been filled with ballast. She 1032 had received 180 tons of ballast, which was the amount her constructor wished her to have. No inconvenience was caused by the storing of that amount of ballast, and she had the required stability, although several changes had been made in her while building. Her armament had been very much increased in weight—namely, by one-half—and in consequence of that and other alterations which added to her weight, she drew 16 inches more water than was originally intended. The designs of the ship were incomplete when Mr. Reed resigned his appointment at the Admiralty, and he was not responsible for the changes made in those designs.