2-970-049 - /Heritage Images

The Grand Naval Review - Yachts taking out Passengers to View the Fleet, sketched from Southsea Common, 1856. '...the water was sprinkled with boats carrying spectators; steamers filled with visitors steering like pigmies through their colossal sisters; gun-boats puffing like locomotive engines; whilst in a mass off Ryde lay a host of craft forming clumps, with their masts relieved in yellow on the houses and trees of the town...the entrance to the harbour was thronged with boats, some of which, filled with merry, bearded faces, were carrying libertymen from the ships of war to the shore; others were crowded and laden to the thwarts with curious spectators anxious to gain a view from the water. Passenger steamers, gun boats, and tenders to the fleet, were perpetually passing in and out of harbour, bewildering the eye by the rapidity of their motion and the quick succession of their numbers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.