[46] A Mariner of England, 1780-1817. Colonel Spencer Childers.
[47] The Chinese considered this a practical form of warfare even in comparatively recent times. In The Voyage of H.M.S. Nemesis (1841) an account is given of the preparations made against the British fleet. At Canton it was stated that "several hundred divers were said to be in training who were to go down and bore holes in our ships at night; or even, as the Chinese privately reported, to carry down with them some combustible material which would burn under water and destroy our vessels".
[48] There is, however, in this MS. a picture of what is probably intended for a diver wearing a metal helmet without a tube.
[49] i.e. King Solomon.
[50] Included in the ships' companies of the Middle Ages were "seamen who knew how to swim for a long time under water". These divers "pierced the ships (of the enemy) in many places so that the water could enter". In an old work on naval architecture, published in 1629, it is stated in reference to the Turkish pirates of Barbary that "The Corsairs, indeed, are very wily in attack and defence, acquainted with many kinds of projectiles, even Submarine Torpedoes, which a diver will attach to an enemy's keel".
[51] See The Story of the Submarine, by Colonel C. Field, R.M.L.I.
[52] See The Story of the Submarine, by Colonel C. Field, R.M.L.I.
[53] Letter from Mr. Ellis to Lord Lexington, 9th August, 1695.
[54] In the Civil War in America the Louisiana was filled with 430,000 pounds of powder, and exploded against Fort Fisher on Christmas Eve, 1864, with little or no effect. This is the last recorded case of an explosion-ship, unless we reckon the four fireships in the form of rafts that in April, 1915, were sent by the Germans against a fort at Osowiec. Some never arrived; the others were blown up by the guns of the fort.
[55] War with Russia, by H. Tyrell.