File:The Grand Naval Review, at Spithead, getting under way, and manning the yards - ILN-1856-0426-0021.jpg

English: The Grand Naval Review, at Spithead, getting under way, and manning the yards. Supplement to The Illustrated London News. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 26 April 1856.

THE GREAT NAVAL REVIEW. THE splendid demonstration of which, on Wednesday last, the waters of the Solent were the scene, and of which at least a quarter of a million of people were the spectators, was scarcely needed to impress either natives or foreigners with due respect and admiration for the night and majesty of Great Britain. A fleet carrying more guns than were mounted on the formidable batteries of Sebastopol and Cronstadt-a fleet manned by upwards of thirty thousand of the finest and bravest sailors in the world-a fleet ready at a day's notice to carry into effect the behest of the nation that aspires to be, and is, the undisputed Mistress of the Seas, whether that behest be one of peace or of war-is a fact which is well calculated to administer consolation to that wounded pride which has suffered so many rubs in the Crimea; and which still endures some disagreeable after-qualms in the investigations yet pending in Chelsea Hospital. No one who beheld the glorious spectacle of these two hundred and forty steam-vessels, which covered, lying peaceably at anchor, a space of no less than twelve miles-of those immense floating fortresses of which each carried upwards of one hundred guns and a thousand men--and of that new-born flotilla of agile gun-boats constructed especially for the shallow waters of the Baltic-can have doubted how much they contributed-though without firing a shot--to that present solution of the difficulties of Europe which the British people are called upon to confirm. If a real peace have been gained, that fleet did more to gain it than any other effort made by the nation. The capture of the Malakoff was a noble deed. The British Navy was not only ready and willing, but able, to overtop even that crowning achievement, and to inscribe the more splendid name of Cronstadt on that long list of victories which; already includes such names as St. Vincent, La Hogue, Copenhagen, the Nile, and Trafalgar. That it was not permitted to do so may be due to the wisdom and the prudence of the Emperor Alexander,--or it may be due to the lukewarmness of an ally who had made his own calculations, and did not greatly care for ours,-or it may be mainly owing, as some assert, to the unstatesmanlike alacrity of those to whom the destinies of Great Britain were considered, who were slow to make war, and quick to make peace. On these points it is possibly premature to express an opinion ; but none can deny the truth, that, be the peace good or bad, stable or unstable, it would not have been made if Great Britain had not been ready with an armament such as that which has just made holiday in the Solent. The duty of the people and of the Government, having such a fleet, is to maintain it in full efficiency, until the political horizon is cleared of the dark clouds that yet brood over it, betokening storm and thunder. Though we have got our peace with Russia, we have not succeeded in assuring the repose of Europe. For many a long year it will not be prudent for this country to listen to the voice of those syrens of Manchester -and elsewhere-who sing of retrenchnont and of economy in military and naval expenditure, and whose talk is ever of the blessings of peace and of the miseries of war--blessings which none deny and all prize, and miseries of which no tongue or pen attempts to extenuate the horror. We cannot maintain a standing army, but we can and must maintain a standing fleet, if we expect the voice of Great Britain to be properly heard or respected in the councils of Europe, amid the calamities and complications which the next few years are certain to bring forth. The peace has, by the confession of those who made it, settled nothing but the future relationship of Russia toward Turkey. To the Emperor of the French, and perhaps to the present Government of Great Britain, this settlement may appear to be sufficient; but it is abundantly evident to nine men out of ten throughout France, England, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Scandinavia, who may or may not have their doubts as to the satisfactory adjustment even of this limited cause of dispute, that Europe still heaves with embryo revolutions, and that there is scarcely one nation within its boundaries which has not an account to settle with one or other of the great military monarchies which weigh like incubi upon the independence and freedom of the people. Had the British fleet been permitted by diplomacy to do this year the work for which it was intended, it is more than probable that other knotty questions besides that of Turkey would have received a permanent and a satisfactory solution--that Italy would have been relieved of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope-that Lombardy and Venice would have been made happy and free that Scandinavia would have recovered her long-lost Finland that Turkey, in whose behalf the war n as supposed to be undertaken, would have received from her thoroughly-defeated foe some indemnity for the enormous outlay which she has been compelled to make in defence of her independence so outrageously assailed;-and that all Europe. and Germany more particularly, would have been freed for fifty years--perhaps for ever-from the dead weight of Russian influence. Every one o the states and countries we have enumerated, in addition to Poland and Hungary, feels that Russian influence is fatal to the freedom and progress of the nations, that it is inimical to every form of government but that of brute force, and favourable only to the repression of all intellect but that which sells itself as a slave to tyranny, and waxes fat on the degradation ,f inhumanity. There is on every hal n much yet to be done before the sword can be turned into the ploughshare, or the spear into the pruninghook, or before wise and far-seeing statesmen can fold their hands in security, and indulge in the pleasing hope that t:e nations of Europe can disband their armies, and study war no more. The peace, even under its more favourable aspect, is but the " beginning of the end." No one can justifiably act ,n the supposition that Italy wil I not be in a state of convulsion from end to end before the le ayes of the present spring shall grow yellow in the sun of autumn. England has got a mighty fle et, and if she lie wise she will keep it, and make the most of it.

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