THE REVIEW OF THE FLEET.
WHEN, on Saturday last, the Queen, anchored in the very centre of her Fleet, signalled to the commanders of all the vessels to attend on board her yacht, the spectacle was not merely extraordinarily striking to the eye, but such as to fire the imagination. The Fleet itself was the most powerful that the world has ever seen assembled in one place and under one command. It would not have needed even one quarter of the double line of war-ships that stretched from where the Royal yacht lay for four miles, and formed a long sea. lane across the green waters of the Solent, to have totally de- stroyed the most powerful of the Navies that in former days have been collected on the same spot. The four or five vessels lying immediately around the Queen, with their armour in- vulnerable to the artillery of an earlier age, with their speed, and with their all-shattering guns, would with shell-fire and ram have broken and sunk an opposing fleet of wooden vessels almost before they had been made ready for action. Opposite the Queen lay the 'Inflexible,' the flagship for the Admiral. Fitted with engines of 8,000 horse-power, armed with four 80-ton guns in her turrets, eight light guns, four quick-firing and seventeen machine-guns, and three torpedo-tubes, protected with armour-plates of iron nearly two-feet thick, and able to steam more than fifteen miles an hour, the 'Inflexible' alone could have dealt destruction to a whole squadron of the days of Nelson. Near her was anchored the Collingwood,' a vessel of the new 'Admiral' class, with engines of 9,570 horse-power, capable of attaining a speed of eighteen or nineteen miles an hour, and armed with four guns of 43 tone and six of lesser weight, and with no less than twelve quick-firing guns and four torpedo- tribes ; while on all sides were to be seen some of the most powerful vessels afloat. Behind the 'Inflexible' lay massed a flotilla of torpedo-boats, which by themselves would be capable of carrying destruction more certain even than the shells of an 80-ton gun, or the stroke from the steel ram of the heaviest ironclad. But even if compared with the Fleets that any one of the other nations of Europe could to-day put afloat, the ships gathered at Spithead must be admitted to surpass them greatly in strength, and this though our squadrons in the Mediterranean, in the Pacific, on the American, African, and China stations, remain unimpaired in strength and numbers. The Review, indeed, may be said to have demonstrated that what we take to be the desire of the English public, has been very fairly attained,—that is, that not only shall our naval force be stronger than that of any other Power, but than that of any two Powers in alliance. From a naval point of view, then, the Review was a legitimate subject of congratulation to all , Englishmen.
• Considered merely as a spectacle, the gathering of the great Fleet at Spithead was, even in this year of splendid pageants, the most striking of the Jubilee celebrations. To witness the scene, spectators enough to people a good-sized town were afloat upon the waters of the Portsmouth roadstead. More than thirty thousand visitors, it is calculated, viewed the squadrons from the numberless craft of all sorts and sizes that swarmed on every side. If to these are added the crews of the various ships engaged in the actual Review, no less than fifty thousand people moat have been, in one capacity or other, actually on the water and present at Spithead. The fact that this enormous number of visitors —thirty thousand is a good-sized army—was embarked and disembarked without any casualty and without delay, is one of the most interesting features of the day. Military writers always tell us that to disembark an army of thirty thousand men is a work of time, for which the most elaborate arrangements must be made. Yet the holiday-makers seem to have found it little or no trouble. It must be remembered, however, that eaoh unit there knew where he wanted to go, and directly he landed took care of himself ; while in the case of disembarking an invading army, the soldiers have to be dealt with and looked after, as parts of an organised body.
A great public function in England, to be perfect, must have some element of that archaic ceremonial which so certainly moves an imaginative race like ours. When, at Westminster Abbey, on the day of the Jubilee Thanksgiving, the Queen took her seat upon the coronation-stone, that element was supplied. Last Saturday it was found, though in a less impressive and in a less familiar act. As the Queen's yacht steamed down between the line of ironclads, gay with flags and with their yardarms and decks manned with their crews of sailors and marines, it was noticed that she bare a combination of flags seen only when the Queen herself as Sovereign and Lord High Admiral of the Fleet proceeds to sea. The combination consists of the Royal Standard at the main, the Admiralty flag at the fore, and the Union Jack at the mizzen. With this visible symbol that the Queen was not merely a spectator of the scene, but Lord High Admiral of the Fleet, her Majesty passed on her tour of inspection, thanked the commanders of the ships, and signalled her praise for their bearing to the crews. As far as picturesqueness of effect is concerned, one of the most wonderful sights of the day seems to have been produced not by any intention, but simply by the action of the tide. The ships that formed the sea-lane were swung round by the tide "broadside to the lines they had formed." A vista of four miles of ironclade, decorated with thousands of flags, was thus produced, in which each ship stood out clearly defined "in all her majesty of form and gaiety of colour:" After the official portion of the Review was over, after the Queen had steamed back to Osborne, and the ships had been undressed of their flags, the inhabitants of Portsmouth were treated to one of the most beautiful spectacles it is possible to imagine. All illuminations gain immensely when they take place upon the water. At Venice, for instance, the mere gas. lamps produce the effect of illumination. It may be easily imagined, then, that to illuminate a fleet of a hundred and thirty-five vessels ranged in regular order produced a spectacle of extraordinary beauty and magnificence. At a signal-rocket sent up from the flag-ship, a ribbon of fire was drawn around the vessels of every sort that formed the Fleet. At another signal from the 'Inflexible,' thousands of rockets, sent up from every quarter, filled the air, while ship after ship shone forth outlined inred and blue fires. Sometimes the rockets soared into the air, and the red and blue fires burnt from this side and from that, apparently just as fancy dictated ; then suddenly, as by a common inspiration, a whole line of battle-ships would blaze out in one concerted glare of red flame, or a general eruption of fire-balls tossed from Roman candler' would rise from the whole Fleet Last of all came the most weird spectacle of the whole display. As if to remind the spectators on shore that what they were watching with such pleasure was, in reality, not playthings, but the most terrible engines of destruction, the great ironclads turned their electric lights fall upon the shore, and showed how that keen and searching glare could make all that came within its scope as visible as if it were daylight.
It is sad to think that the great sea festival did not pass off without the loss of human life. During the firing of the Queen's salute of twenty-one gnus from the gunboat a serious accident occurred. One of the guns, while being discharged, burst, wounding one sailor severely and killing another. It does not appear that the explosion was due to any act of neglect or carelessness on the part of the men, but simply to one of those unfortunate accidents which it is impossible to prevent altogether in the case of artillery. But for this incident, however, the whole arrangement of the Review wee most successful. It reflected no little credit on all concerned that so great a number of ships should have been collected, and so many thousand spectators embarked and disembarked, and conveyed to their stations, without accident, delay, or confusion. On the whole, the Review was one of which Englishmen have every right to be proud. It proved beyond a doubt that England possesses a Fleet which, in time of danger, could afford the fullest protection to her coasts.
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