NEWS OF THE WEEK.
TTIR review of the Fleet by the King at Spithead last Saturday passed off without a hitch in splendid weather. The Royal flotilla left Cowes at 2 o'clock, and steamed through the lines of the Fleet, each vessel as she was passed saluting the King with three cheers. The progress lasted for more than two hours, for a great part of which the King remained standing on the upper deck of the Victoria and Albert.' At the close of the review the Admirals and Captains were received by the King, and a message was signalled to the Fleet expressing his " extreme satisfaction " at the appearance of the ships and the ships' companies. A severe thunderstorm marred the 'illuminations at night so far as the convenience of the spectators was concerned, but enhanced their beauty by the strange atmospheric effects produced. A truly magnificent climax was reached by the elevation of the rainbow-hued beams of the searchlights so as to form a colossal Gothic arch over the Royal yacht. The Fleet, though weaker in numbers than that assembled at the Diamond Jubilee, covered an area of some twenty square miles, and had a special appropriateness in that, without drawing on the Reserve or detaching a single ship from the foreign stations, it represented, by massing the Channel, the Home, and the Cruiser Squadrons, the naval force immediately available for the defence of these islands. On Monday, owing to the misty and squally weather, the evolutions, including that complicated movement known as the " gridiron," had to be abandoned, but the King inspected the squadrons under way, and signalled his farewell to the departing foreign warships.
