A modern fleet is not simply a collection of all
the vessels available for action at a particular moment. Rather it is like an Army Corps, made up of certain necessary constituent parts; and just as the Army Corps wants infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and commissariat, so a fleet has to have its proper contingent of heavily armoured ironclad's, fast cruisers, gunboats, torpedo-boats, torpedo.boat catchers, and storeships. Accordingly, the vessels selected for the great Review were representative of all the different craft in the Navy. The Fleet was thus composed of 26 heavily armed steel-clad fighting-ships, 9 unarmoured cruisers and scouts, 5 sea-going torpedo-cruisers, 38 first-class torpedo-boats, 38 gunboats, 12 troopships, 6 training.brigs, and 1 paddle-frigate. To these must be added the merchant-ships on the Admiralty lists, which have been built under the direction of the Admiralty, and which can be called for in time of war. To man the Fleet there were 20,200 officers and men, while the number of guns was 500. It is satisfactory to learn that the ships were manned without calling on the Reserves, and that only one-third of the Coastguard was made use of.
