2-913-821 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

H.M.S. "Miranda" destroying the City of Kola, the Capital of Russian Lapland, 1854. Crimean War: Royal Navy ship attacking. 'Russia has sustained a severe loss by the destruction of Kola...Captain Lyons has...expunged it from the list of capitals...The Miranda lay within point blank range of the battery. The Governor of the city would not come to terms; the guns were manned, and every tower and building loopholed, and filled with men; but they could not stand the shot and shell and redhot shot within musket range. In less than an hour their guns were dismounted, their batteries in ruins, and their city in flames. One tower of the fortified cathedral alone now stands to mark the spot where Kola once had been....[The Miranda] has boarded 375 ships and vessels, showing the immense trade that will be lost to Russia in consequence of the war with England'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.