The Express.
London, England, 1867-07-17 00:00:00

!fiLITANNIA.

Juts EVENI3O. HAMLET. 31esant. J. Reynolds and T him-
mond : Miss M. Mlles and Miss J. roveney. Mr. 11. Stnicstone
Mr. and Mrs:M.llMb: the Champion Skaters of England.—And
CLAVIA LA:VAL, TILE LADIES' 'Mill% AY3LUs.

RIGS WATU AT LONDON BRIDOZ.
TIM DAY —Morning, r.h. Dim Afternoon. 21 ego.
Tallositow—Monalott. 3b. A. 1 J3s.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 17.

THE last grand Naval Review, in 1830, was the
euthanasia of the Russian war, in which the
British squadrons in the Baltic and the Black Sea
had done all the service that was required of them
with unfailing zeal, but had found few and slight
opportunities of distinction. In the Baltic there
bad been a tedious blockade, a tantalising chal-
lenge to the enemy's capital, a bombardment of a
seaport and its defences, with no very decisive re-
sults, and a few chases and captures. The ships were
ill-manned, and not particularly well qualified
for the task of reducing Cronstadt ; but, in com-
pany with our allies, they swept the Baltic clear
of hostile cruisers, and performed their exer-
cises and evolutions in its waters as unconcernedly
as though the Baltic were an English lake. It was
dull work for the officers and ships' companies ;
but the work, such as it was, was well and faith-
fully dune. In the Black Sea the operations of
the fleet were more active, though scarcely more
satisfactory to the service. They transported the
expeditionary army to the Crimea in good order,
waited upon the movements of the land forces
from Old Fort to Sebastopol, stood in and en-
gaged at point-blank range the outer batteries of
that famous harbour, maintained the communica-
tions uninterrupted from the Sea of Marmora to
the Sea of Azof, gave a severe warning to Odessa,
stopped the enemy's supplies across the Isthmus
of Perekop, and in short held all those
Russian waters as their own. Under most
disadvantageous and discouraging circumstances
the British naval forces did all they
could, and all that was given them to do, in a
manner that fully satisfied their countrymen at
home that NELSON'S immortal signal was still the
watchword imprinted on the heart of every officer
and seaman under her MAJESTY'S pennant. But
the officers and seamen themselves were not satis-
fied with their performances, and were eagerly
looking forward to a splendid reranche, when
peace fell upon them, and instead of blockading,
and bombarding, and prize-making, they
found themselves spending their reserves of
powder in a general action off the Nab, and
engaging Southsea Castle, to the astonish-
ment of thousands of innocent Cockneys. It
was a spectacle not easily forgotten—that long
processional' array of line-of-battle ships, and fri-
gates, and corvettes, and sloops, and gunboats all
moving by signal, and as it were imperceptibly,
in their appointed order, to the rendezvous,
with the royal standard of her MsJewire's yacht in
the van, and all the estates of the realm attend-
ing upon the Sovereign, and half London afloat,
looking on and making merry, and huge ocean
steamers crowding the middle distance, and swan-
like yachts innumerable lighting up the picture
with their snowy wings. The general effect was
simply admirable ; it was the Queen of the Seas
with all her host celebrating the national revels on
her immemorial and inviolate domain. There was
much, no doubt, for a skilled eye to criticise
in detail in the actual composition of that fleet, in
so heterogeneous a collection of materiel—from the
latest and fastest screw liner to the creeping old
blockships, from the unwieldy and unsightly float-
ing batteries to the batch of greenwood gunboats,
more remarkable for sauciness and noise than for
shape and make. To the honest and enthusiastic
landsman it was enough that there was the visible
presence of BRITANNIA ruling the waves.
And so no doubt it will be to-day to the
thousands of fortunate or unfortunate ticket-
holders who will spend an unusually long morning
and afternoon in studying the Admiralty map of
the evolutions, and, like the intelligent foreigner
who was taken to see a game of cricket, in won-
dering when the game is going to begin. Steam,
which enables a fleet to move in a calm or in the
wind's eye, has given. to its movements something
•
of purely military precision, at the cost, per-
haps, of something of the old romance and the
old craft of seamanship ; nevertheless, a fleet
manoeuvring under steam is a grand and imposing
sight, and we dare say the Lords of the Admi-
ralty will not be sorry to show that the old sea-
manship is not forgotten, if the wind
is • strong and fair enough to-day. For
th? profess' I spectator the Review will doubt-
less be full of interest and suggestion. Ho will
mark the rapid and incessant process of trans-
formation which has gone on during the last eleven
years. In 1856 the coastguard ships and block-
ships were simply old seventy-fours with auxiliary
screws ; their successors are the smart st
lineof-
battle ships of eleven years ago. The screw line-

of-battle ships of to-day are perhaps the but of
their race, an the four sailing line-of-battle ships,
which brought tears of proud regret to many eyes
ai they bore slowly' and grandly up at sunset to
the anchorage at the close of a former review, were
the last of their glorious family. The Victoria,
the Duncan, the Donegal, and the Revenge of to-
day are either flagships returned from foreign
stations, and about to be paid out of commission, or
stationary goardbliipa at home. Of the frigates,
there in the Terrible—the first, and now