The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-18 00:00:00

The time-worn adage that " man proposes and
Providence disposes" received another exemplifica-
tion in what may almost be called the " intended"
naval review in honour of the Sultan yesterday.
There was a fleet of men-of-war such as has never
hitherto been brought together ; there were fleets
of yachts, fleets of pleasure boats, Royal and illus-
trious visitors in numbers. Nothing was wanted to
insure success but fair winds and clear skies. Had
the south-western coast been favoured with these
all would have been well, and the Sultan would
have seen a naval review on a scale of such magni-
tude as has never been attempted in England before.
Fine weather only was essential to success, and it
was exactly this essential that was wanting. To
say that the weather was bad would hardly do jus-
tice to its inclemency. Bad weather in July is
generally looked for at Spithead, and comes pretty
nearly as regularly as the month itself. The time
chosen on this occasion was above all full of evil
portents, for it was the time of the spring tides and
at the change of the moon. Nevertheless, even those
best versed in the uncertainties of an English cli-
mate were not prepared for the storms of wind
which swept over Spithead yesterday, and effectu-
ally put a stop to all the evolutions which compose
a naval review. The morning, indeed, broke fine
and clear, but with a wind violently high, and
the sky and the horizon marked with that
ominous grey, watery tint which always forebodes
a summer gale, and sometimes a severe one.
Everybody hoped against hope that it would at last
clear up, but the mist only thickened as the wind
freshened, with angry squalls of cold, biting rain.
The sea came rolling in heavily on the beach at
Southsea, where it broke in clouds of spray, and
the ships in the heavy swell outside were dipping to
their anchors in a way which showed it was impos-
sible for small boats to get off from or to come
alongside the huge craft in the distance. From the
moment these ominous appearances showed them-
selves all naval officers predicted that the review
would be impossible; and, unfortunately, they were
true prophets. Some minor evolutions of the
gunboats were gone through, and the fleet itself
manned yards and saluted as the Sultan passed, and
saluted again as her Majesty came by, but this was
nearly all. The fleet never raised their anchors,
and the immense crowds of visitors who had flocked
in from almost all parts of the kingdom to see the
great naval review had not only the disappointment
of seeing no review at all, but of passing an uncom-
fortable day on rough water in half a gale of wind.
As we have said this was the more to be regret-
ted, for yesterday it was for the first time intended
to have a real naval review and to put the fleet
through complicated manoeuvres under steam and
sail. The fleet, too, was one worthy of the occa-
sion. Though less numerous and less imposing in
appearance than the fleets of three-deckers and fri-
gates which formed the naval displays of past years,
it was in strength and armament probably the
strongest fleet that has ever been brought together
since ironclads were first designed. It is literally
not saying too much that one of the long, low black
hulls which formed part of the starboard line yes-
terday would have been a heavy overmatch for all
the huge wooden line-of-battle ships, whose tiers of
guns seemed almost to look down upon the decks of
their invulnerable consorts beside them.

The whole fleet was moored in two magnificent
lines, the flag-ship of the port division being that
most superb of all English three-deckers the Vic-
toria, and that of thestarboard the huge five-masted
Minotaur, one of the great leviathans of our iron
fleet. At equal distances from these came the rest
of the fleet.

The total strength of the whole fleet of vessels of
war (exclusive of armed troop ships, &c.), 49,
mounting 1,092. guns, and having an aggregate
horse-power of 22,500 horses and a burden of
102,000 tons. This in numbers exceeded the fleet
that left for the Baltic under Sir Charles Napier in
1854. Both these fleets, however, were nothing in
numbers to the tremendous armada which the
Queen with the Prince Consort reviewed at Spit-
head in 1850. Then there were no less than 300
craft afloat of various kinds and sizes, including 20
screw line of battle ships and 90 first-class frigates.
Then for the first time the rough uncouth precur-
sors of the ironclads were seen in the ironcased
mortar batteries—the Glatton, Trusty, and the like
—which had been specially built for service which
they never saw against the Russian batteries.
Great and imposing as this display was, however,
it really fell short as an exhibition of naval power
of the fleet of yesterday. Four or five vessels,
dwarfed by the lofty three-deckers around them,
were in themselves sufficient to sweep the ocean of
nearly all the wooden ships that ever floated. The
least noticed of these, but, perhaps, the most for-
midable—where all were formidable—was the
Royal Sovereign turret-ship, which scarcely pre-
sented a mark the size of a target above the water.
She lay full in front of our most beautiful screw-
liner, the Revenge, and, of course, the contrast only
heightened the beauty of the latter. So also with
the Minotaur, which faced the Victoria, where the
advantage in stately majesty of appearance and
seeming strength was all on the side of the wooden
vessel. Yet, in fact, it was only in appearance, for
the two iron ships we have mentioned could have
cleared the roadstead of all the wooden fleet from
Spithearl to Cowes. Yet the wooden vessels had it
not all their own way on the side of beauty, for the
Bellerophon, the Warrior, and Black Prince were
there, and so, too, was the Achilles, all sitting on
the water as lightly as so many mail boats, and
with bows as fine as so many Cunarders. The
little fleet of gunboats formed a separate squadron,
moored higher up the roadstead, and therefore in
the smoother water which they so much needed in
such a swell.

It was expected that the review would begin very
early, and no man-of-war boats were to leave with
visitors to the fleet later than 9.30 in the morning.
Long before that time, however, it was almost im-
possible, as the wind freshened, for any boat to leave
at all, and still more difficult to find people willing
to face what was not only the discomfort, but even
the positive risk, of going off in them. Even the
steam launches, which we have copied from the
French, but which in out service are made too heavy
and far less handy than they should be, came in
half full of water, and, once in, had to remain, for
there was no going out again in the face of such a
wind and sea. The spectators who were so fortu-
nate as to have eards for vessels in the Dockyard
got off easily enough ; those who were dependent on the ship's boats were for the time disappointed,
but had ample reason to congratulate themselves on
their escape before the day was over. Soon after
10 o'clock the wind freshened considerably, e
grey drift of clouds on the horizon mounted the
grey drift o cloud, on the horizon mounted up
with alarming rapidity, and the first of the long
succession of squalls which continued with little
intermission throughout the day broke over the
harbour. The wind was so strong that at times
there was almost no facing it, while clouds of blind-
ing rain came down almost with the force of small
shot. Signals passed between the flagship and the
rest of the fleet, which were generally interpreted
as conveying the order that the ships were not to
weigh or even man the yards. Dressing the ship
was, of course, out of the question. No halyards
would have held a mass of wet bunting in such a
wind. So complete was the belief that there would
he nothing worth seeing, that the dense crowds
which had covered Southsea beach, and indeed all
parts of the shore, began to disperse. The plea-
sure boat:3 and yachts came hurrying in, and the
roadsteads, devoid of any sign of animation beyond
the fleet itself, was left to the wind and the rain
and the dirty-looking, cross seas which, ridged with
white spray, came tumbling rank over rank before
the gale It was really a miserable beginning to
what afterwards proved a miserable day. Occa-
sionally little breaks would 'come in the scud, half
rain, half mist, and raised delusive hopes that the
day might even yet prove fine ; but it never did.
It was cheerless and uncomfortable from first to
last.

The delay of the Viceroy's train in arriving at
the jetty was rather distracting to those who were
waiting to receive his Highness, for at a critical
moment the gnus of the flagship announced the
coming of the Sultan. And so the Board of Admiralty