Armstrong’s—Russian War-ship Construction—Arrival of “Cimbria” at Bar Harbor—Visit of Wharton Barker to Shipyard—Visit of Captain Semetschkin and Commission to the Yard—Purchase of Ships—Newspaper Accounts—Captain Gore-Jones—Mr. Cramp’s account of Operations—“Europe,” “Asia,” “Africa,” and “Zabiaca”—Popoff and “Livadia”—Visit to Grand Duke Constantine—Anniversary Banquet in St. Petersburg of Survivors of “Cimbria” Expedition—Object of Visit to Russia—Mr. Dunn and Japan—Contract for “Kasagi”—Jubilee Session of Naval Architects in London—Visit to Russia—Correspondence with Russian Officials—Visit to Armstrong’s—Japanese War-ship Construction—“Coming Sea Power”—Correspondence with Russian Official—Invited to Russia—Asked to bid for War-ships—Our Ministers abroad—Construction of “Retvizan” and “Variag”—“Maine”
The old Latin poet Horace introduces his First Book of “Sermons or Satires” by addressing to his great patron, Mæcenas, the question:
“Qui fit, Mæcenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem
Seu ratio dederit, seu fors objecerit illa
Contentus vivat? laudet diversa sequentes?”
(“How is it, Mæcenas, that no one lives content with the lot that endeavor has given to him or that fortune has thrown in his way? but emulates those following other pursuits?”)
Mr. Cramp reached the condition described by Horace early in the last decade of the nineteenth century. He had exhausted the opportunities of American ship-building, both for war and for commerce. A fleet, not only respectable in number but formidable in type and power,—a fleet embracing battleships, armored cruisers, and protected cruisers,—bore the impress of his art and heralded the distinction of his name. To this compact war-fleet he had added two ocean greyhounds, the first of their type built in the Western hemisphere. In prosecution of all this advancement, if we take the decade from 1885 to 1895, he had multiplied the area of the shipyard by two, and its capacity alike in number and size of steamships and their machinery more than three. In 1889, some people—and among them his own associates in the ownership of the yard—were afraid to undertake the armored cruiser “New York.” Mr. Cramp met this obstruction with radical action, as was his wont in every emergency; and in four years from that time he had laid the keels of Atlantic greyhounds whose register tonnage was more than two thousand tons greater than the total displacement of the “New York.”
Mr. Cramp had long been emulous, some Englishman might say envious, of the wonderful career of Sir William Armstrong and of his marvellous success in securing foreign contracts. On one occasion, returning from a visit to Elswick with a party from the British Institution of Naval Architects, of which he is a member, Mr. Cramp remarked that “Armstrong and his establishment had ceased to be ship-builders in the ordinary acceptation of the term and had become navy-builders. They do not trouble themselves,” he said, “with isolated ships; to all intents and purposes they undertake to build whole navies in bulk for ambitious maritime states in South America and Asia.” At the time of the visit referred to, with exceptions hardly worth mention, the navies of Brazil, Argentine Republic, Chile, Japan, and China had been built, engined, armed, armored, munitioned, equipped, and outfitted at Elswick; and every ship was ready for battle when she finally sailed from Armstrong’s works. In addition to this, Elswick had done a great deal of work for European states, having, at one time or another, contributed in some degree to every European navy, great or small, except those of France and Russia.
To a man of Mr. Cramp’s untiring aspiration and restless ambition, this was a spectacle not to be supinely endured. He therefore determined to see what could be done, and he selected what seemed to him the most promising directions of effort,—Russia and Japan. In dealing with the Russians he had initial advantages. The first was that Russia never had a war-ship, except the nondescript “Livadia,” built in England, though she had been a liberal patron of English engine-builders. The second point of advantage was that in 1878-79 a considerable volume of work had been done by Cramp for the Russian navy, involving conversion of three large merchant steamships into auxiliary cruisers and the construction of one small cruiser.
The history of this interesting event, an event of international importance, is as follows: