They developed a close friendship, but the work came to an end at last in 1957. One project suffered from Hodge's heavy workload in these years. When his old friend Norman Cameron died from a stroke in 1953 leaving Hodge his copyrights, Hodge agreed to prepare an edition of his poems with an introduction by Robert Graves. This edition hung fire for a long time, to Graves's increasing anger, but the Collected Poems finally appeared in June 1957.
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A catastrophic accident on board HMS Thunderer in January 1879, in which a 35-ton 12-inch muzzle-loader hung fire and was subsequently double-loaded, motivated the Admiralty to re- consider the RBL. Improvements in breech mechanisms in the period 1860 to 1880, together with the introduction of large-grain powder, caused the Navy to re-adopt the RBL as the new powder required longer barrels which could not be withdrawn into the turret for loading. A new 12-inch gun was developed for HMS Edinburgh in 1879, but burst during trials. Following modifications the new weapon proved reliable.
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A catastrophic accident on board HMS Thunderer in January 1879, in which a 35-ton 12 inch muzzle loader hung fire and was subsequently double-loaded (causing catastrophic failure when fired again), motivated the Admiralty to re-consider the rifled breech loaders, as it is generally impossible to double load a breechloader. Improvements in breech mechanisms in the period 1860 to 1880, together with the introduction of large grain powder, caused the Navy to re-adopt the RBL as the new powder required longer barrels which could not be withdrawn into the turret for loading. A new 12-inch gun was developed for HMS Edinburgh in 1879, but burst during trials. Following modifications the new weapon proved reliable.
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When news of the surrender reached the Lord Justice Clerk in Edinburgh, he complained that Grant could have held the Jacobites at bay for a few more days, and the Duke of Cumberland exclaimed that he was "no way able to explain how, or by what it is so, but a silly affair it is". The Jacobites plundered the ample provisions from inside the fort and Prince Charles Edward Stuart ordered the curtain walls to be razed and the bastions blown up, in order for the fort to be of no use if it fell back into the hands of the government. This did however cost the life of one of his French sergeants who was inspecting a demolition charge that had hung fire. The two Government Independent Highland Companies that had been captured were later reformed after the Battle of Culloden and carried out useful service for the government.
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A History of the Papacy During the Period of the Reformation, Volume 2, by Mandell Creighton, 1885, page 17. Nevertheless, on the eighth of November four decrees were published, all of them directed against easy targets: against the followers of the heretical reformers, Jan Hus, recently burnt at the stake at the Council of Constance despite a promise of safe conduct, and against the English followers of John Wycliffe, who claimed that the highest authority was the Bible; against the followers of the schismatic Antipope Benedict XIII; a decree postponing the negotiations with the Greeks and other Eastern Orthodox churches (which were later worked into acceptable compromises in the long working sessions of the Council of Florence, 1438 to 1445); and a decree advising greater vigilance against heresy, the easiest target of all. Proposals for genuine institutional reform within the Catholic Church hung fire ominously. French proposals for more local control ("Gallican" proposals, generally speaking) produced resistance from the loyalists of the Papal Curia.
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In 1863 an Ordnance Select committee met to consider the merits of muzzle-loading and breech-loading guns. In 1864, even before they had concluded their investigations, the Government stopped the manufacture of Armstrong breech-loaders. When the Committee finally reported, in August 1865, they announced that: Fort No 1, Lévis, Quebec, Canada Their report did admit that Armstrong's guns, while more expensive, were undoubtedly safer in that while it was not uncommon for cast iron muzzle-loaders to burst, not one Armstrong gun had ever done so. (Furthermore, gunners could clear a hang fire from the breech; when the RML 17.72 inch gun at Napier of Magdala Battery at Gibraltar hung fire, a gunner had to be lowered head-first down the bore to attach an extractor to the shell.) Despite a further report which remarked on the advantages of breech-loaders, cost dominated the proceedings and the Committee finally announced that "The balance of advantages is in favour of muzzle-loading field guns", and in 1865 Britain reverted from breech-loading ordnance to muzzle-loading.
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