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.”