THE FIRST IRONCLAD.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Issue 116, 20 February 1895, Page 4

THE FIRST IRONCLAD.

The first ironclad was buii'; in tha year 1691 by a shipwright of Antwerp during the wars with the Spaniards. The greater part of the Netherlands had como into the possession of the House of Hapsburg by the marriage of Maximilian of Austria to Mary, daughter of Duke Charles the Bold, in 1477, but under Charles V. the sovereignity was extended until it embraced all the 17 Belgian arid Batavian provinces. When the Lowlands passed to the Spanish Crown, tho principles of the Reformation had spread auiong the Lowlands and on the establishment of the Inquisition there in the middle of the sixteenth, century, disturbances broke out in the provinces, and great cruelties were committed by the Spaniards. Antwerp, which in those days was a margraviate, suffered greatly. It was pillaged by the Spanish soldiery in 1574, and was again beseiged in the Regency of Alexander of Parma, being taken in 1585. In the summer of that year it was closely invested by land and water, and tho people of Antwerp made many gallant efforts to break through the lineof thebeseigers, especially on tho river. For this purpose they built a craft of unusual size, with a fiat bottom, and armed its sides with iron plates fastened into great beams of wood. The idea was to make not so much a ship as a floating castle, impregnable to tho artillery and missiles of those days, which should crush all opposition. It contained a great number ;.f men, some of whom were placed like sharpshooters iu the tops of tho masts, and the rest protected by tho bulwarks. The men of Antwerp were so confident of the success of their new invention that they called it Finis Belli, feeling sure tha 1 ; l-y its means they would be able to raise the seige and put an end to the War, Unfor. tunatoly for the brave burghore of Antwerp, this early ironclad proved a disastrous failure. It was launched upon the Scheldt, and takeii across the flooded country by meana of a canal cut from the river; but it proved very unhandy, and after a short career got stuck upon a bank. This untimely end of the great vcasel from which so inuoh was hopod was a sourre of much delight and derision to tho Spaniards, wlio nicknamed the monster Caranjamaula which signifies a bogoy while tho men of Antwerp altered its name from Finis Belli to Perpitco expenscc or ' Money throw'n away.' The crew then deserted the ship, and the Spaniards after a naval battle whicli took place in the flooded country, and resulted in the defeat of the Netherlander, took possession of the naval raunastry, as they called it, though they feared that, like the Trogan Horse it had been left in their hands for some evil purpose. However finding that it really was deserted, they seized it, lightened it, and then towed it off and got it back into the river Scheldt. It was then taken in triumph to the camp of Alexander of Parma, where it became one or the Bights of the time; and the Spaniards accepting the omen of its original name, took it as a sign that the war was-finishod. And, indeed, it proved to be tho last effort of thj gallant people of Antwerp, for the city was taken on. August 17, 1585, and f.o tho first ironclad on record came to an unfortunate end.