Ships Cover for the Comus class steel screw corvettes HMS Canada (1881), HMS Carysfort (1878), HMS Champion (1878), HMS Cleopatra (1878), HMS Comus (1878), HMS Conquest (1878), HMS Constance (1880), HMS Cordelia (1878) and HMS Curacoa (1878). The documentation covering the class as a whole primarily relates to the initial design proposal statement/requirements, stability calculations, coal allocation, dimensions and hull weights, crew complement, machinery, ship's boats, armament and mast/sail arrangements. Other items of correspondence relate to alterations carried out on members of the class during their service lives. Papers referring to specific vessels include a report on the brass keel pieces and posts for Comus, proposed lightning conductors for the latter ship and Cleopatra, a report on problems experienced with the propeller feathering gear for Constance [and the solution carried out in drydock], provisioning returns for Curacoa in 1885 and Canada in 1893, and a steaming trials report for Cordelia. A template dated June 1879 compares the attributes of this class [represented by Comus] with the earlier Volage (1869) and the wooden screw frigate USS Trenton (1876). The documents commences in January 1876 when the orders for the class were being placed and the first keels laid and ends in June 1914, by which point the last surviving members of the class [Champion and Cleopatra] had been relegated to harbour service.