CHAPTER I.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE TORPEDO.—REMARKS ON THE EXISTING STATE OF TORPEDO WARFARE.
THE earliest record we have of the employment of an infernal machine at all resembling the torpedo of the present day, was in 1585 at the siege of Antwerp. Here by means of certain small vessels, drifted down the stream, in each of which was placed a magazine of gunpowder, to be fired either by a trigger, or a combination of levers and clockwork, an Italian engineer, Lambelli, succeeded in demolishing a bridge that the enemy had formed over the Scheldt.
So successful was this first attempt, and so tremendous was the effect produced on the spectators, by the explosion of one of these torpedoes, that further investigation of this new mode of Naval warfare was at once instituted.
But it was not until some two hundred years after that any real progress was effected, though numerous attempts were made during this period, to destroy vessels by means of sub-marine infernal machines.
It was owing to the fact, that the condition which is now considered as essential in torpedo warfare, viz., that the charge must be submerged, was then entirely ignored, that so long a standstill occurred in this new art of making war.
Captain Bushnell, the Inventor of Torpedoes.—To Captain David Bushnell, of Connecticut, in 1775, is most certainly due the credit of inventing torpedoes, or as he termed them submarine magazines. For he first proved practically that a charge of gunpowder could be fired under water, which is incontestably the essence of submarine warfare.
Submarine Boat.—To Captain Bushnell is also due the credit of first devizing a submarine boat for the purpose of conveying his magazines to the bottom of hostile ships and there exploding them.
Drifting Torpedoes.—Another plan of his for destroying vessels, was that of connecting two of his infernal machines together by means of a line, and throwing them into the water, allowing the current to carry them across the bows of the attacked ship.