The morning after the Admiralty meeting, Phillip dragged every relevant document into his room: ledgers from Shropshire Foundry, and the private notes wrote from memory—reconstructing 21st-century engineering knowledge in 19th-century ink.
He began with materials.
Because a warship meant to revolutionize naval combat could not rely on good intentions. It needed steel. And lots of it.
He spread three papers side by side:
Wrought Iron – widely available, ductile, but too soft.
Cast Iron – harder, but brittle; cracks easily under impact.
Steel – strong, resilient, ideal… but expensive and rare.
Phillip tapped the steel sheet with his quill.
"Not anymore," he murmured.
His foundry was the first in Europe with an operational Bessemer converter, capable of mass-producing steel at a fraction of traditional cost.
Most nations couldn't. Most engineers wouldn't. But Phillip was not from this era.
He wrote in bold strokes:
