These plans were conceived by him in 1811, and in the following year, as he has told in his "Autobiography," he submitted them to the Prince Regent, afterwards King George IV. By the Prince they were referred to a Secret Committee, consisting of the Duke of York, as President, Lord Keith, Lord Exmouth, and the two Congreves; who, on the details being set before them, declared this method of attack to be infallible and irresistible. Lord Dundonald was pledged to secrecy by the Prince Regent, and it was proposed to employ the device in the war still proceeding with France. That proposal, however, was abandoned, and another, for a trial of the plan under Sir Alexander Cochrane in North America, in 1814, was prevented by the Stock Exchange trial. After that, the long peace enjoyed by England would have postponed the experiment, even if Lord Dundonald had not been debarred from pursuit of his calling as an English naval officer. He might have used his secret in Chili, Brazil, and Greece; but his promise to the Prince Regent, and patriotic feelings, that were even more cogent than that promise, restrained him. Once used, it would cease to be a secret; and he resolved that the great advantage that would accrue from the first use should be reserved for his own country.
The project, however, was not forgotten by him. Soon after the accession of King William IV., he explained it to his Majesty, who acknowledged its value, and paid a tribute to Lord Dundonald's honourable conduct in keeping his secret so long and under such strong inducements to an opposite course. Soon afterwards, and during many years, the prospect of another war induced him to engage in frequent correspondence on the subject with various members of the successive Governments.
"I long ago," wrote the Marquis of Lansdowne—then President of the Council—in May, 1834, "communicated the substance of the paper you left with me, on the important objects which might be accomplished by the agency you describe, in an attack upon an hostile marine, to such of my colleagues as I then had an opportunity of seeing, and more particularly to Lord Minto, whom I found in some degree apprized of your views upon this subject. As questions of such importance to the naval interests of the country can only be satisfactorily inquired into by the Admiralty Department of the Government, I should recommend your entering into an unreserved communication with him on the subject, which I know he will receive with all the attention due to your high professional character and experience."
The Earl of Minto gave many proofs of his regard for Lord Dundonald; but he was not disposed to think favourably of the secret war-plan, and it was kept in abeyance for four years more. In the autumn of 1838 Lord Dundonald again pressed its consideration upon Lord Lansdowne, alleging as a reason the warlike attitude of Russia. "I am obliged to you for your letter," wrote Lord Lansdowne in reply, on the 5th of November, "and will certainly make use of the communication it contains in the proper quarter, if the occasion arises, which I sincerely hope it will not. Ambitious and encroaching as Russia is seen and felt to be in all directions, I am confident that her own true policy is to avoid giving just cause for war, and that, busily as she may use all indirect means towards her ends which she thinks she can justify, she will yield to remonstrance when these limits are transgressed by her agents. This is a course, however, which requires to be, and I trust will be, most carefully watched."
In that interesting letter, Lord Lansdowne showed, by his silence, that he was not inclined to investigate the war-plan; and a like indifference was experienced by Lord Dundonald in his repeated efforts, during the ensuing years, to secure its acceptance by the Government. It was submitted to a favoured few, and all to whom it was explained acknowledged its efficacy; but no more than that was done. Its most competent critic was the Duke of Wellington, who recognised the terrible power of the device, although he objected to it on the score that "two could play at that game." "If the people of France shall force their Government to war with England," wrote Lord Dundonald to Lord Minto on the 3rd of August, 1840, "I hope you will do me the favour and justice to reflect on the nature of the opinion you received from the Duke of Wellington in regard to my plans, which is the same as that given to the Prince Regent by Lords Keith and Exmouth and the two Congreves in the year 1811, and that your lordship will perceive, that 'although two can play at the game,' the one who first understands it can alone be successful. In the event of war, I beg to offer my endeavours to place the navy of France under your control, or at once effectually to annihilate it. Were my plans known to the world, I should not be accused of over-rating their powers by the above otherwise extraordinary assertion." Lord Minto's answer was very brief: "I shall bear your offer in mind; but there is not the slightest chance of war."
For the same reason the secret plans were set aside by the Earl of Haddington, who was First Lord of the Admiralty after Lord Minto. He rendered considerable aid to Lord Dundonald in testing his steam-engine and boiler, but considered the fact that England was at peace as a sufficient reason for not discussing the value of a new instrument of war.
Lord Dundonald, however, who knew the value of his invention, thought otherwise. While vast sums of money were being spent at Dover, Portsmouth, and elsewhere upon fortifications and harbours of refuge for trading-vessels, which, in war time, could have no chance of safety against fighting steam ships in the open sea, he deemed it especially important that attention should be paid to a project calculated to effect an entire revolution in the principles and methods of warfare. If his project was feasible, it furnished an instrument by which fortifications and harbours of refuge would be rendered useless, seeing that the most powerful enemy might by it be effectually prevented from coming within reach of those defences, or, if he was allowed to approach them, could use it with a terrible effect, to which the most formidable defences could offer no resistance. It was under this impression that, on the 29th of November, 1845, finding Governments indifferent to his arguments, he addressed a vigorous letter to "The Times."
"Had gunpowder and its adaptation to artillery," he there said, "been discovered and perfected by an individual, and had its wonderful power been privately tested, indisputably proved, and reported to a Government, or to a council of military men, at the period when the battering-ram and cross-bow were chief implements in war, it is probable that the civilians would have treated the author as a wild visionary, and that the professional council, true to the esprit de corps, would have spurned the supposed insult to their superior understanding. Science and the arts, both of peace and war, nevertheless, in despite of all such retarding causes, have advanced, and probably will advance, until effects and consequences accrue which the imagination can scarcely contemplate.
"It is not, however, my intention to intrude observations of an ordinary nature, but to endeavour to rectify an erroneous opinion which appears to prevail, that consequences disastrous to this country may be anticipated from the introduction of steam-ships into maritime warfare. I am desirous of showing that the use of steam-ships of war, though at present available by rival nations, need not necessarily diminish the security of our commerce; that still less need it necessarily endanger our national existence, which appears to be apprehended by those who allege the necessity of devoting millions of money to the defence of our coasts. I contend that there is nothing in the expected new system of naval warfare, through the employment of steam-vessels, that can justify such expensive and derogatory precautions, because there are equally new, and yet secret, means of conquest, which no devices hitherto used in maritime warfare could resist or evade.
"That the like prejudice or incredulity which in all probability would have scouted the invention of gunpowder, if offered to notice under the circumstances above supposed, may exist to a considerable extent in the present case, is extremely likely; yet I do not the less advisedly affirm, that with this all-powerful auxiliary invasion may be rendered impossible, and our commerce secure, by the speedy and effectual destruction of all assemblages of steam-ships, and, if necessary, of all the navies of the whole world, which, for ever after, might be prevented from inconveniently increasing. Away then with the sinister forebodings which have originated the recent devices for protruding through the sterns of sluggish ships of war additional guns for defence in fight! Away with the projected plans of 'protective forts and ports' of cowardly refuge! Let the manly resolution be taken, when occasion shall require, vigorously to attack the enemy, instead of preparing elaborate means of defence. Factitious ports on the margin of the Channel cannot be better protected than those which exist, respecting which I pledge any professional credit I may possess, that whatever hostile force might therein be assembled could be destroyed within the first twenty-four hours favourable for effective operations, in defiance of forts and batteries, mounted with the most powerful ordnance now in use.