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The Grand Naval Review - Supplement, 1856. 'Familiar for the past two years with the story of naval and military achievements, we close the period of a successful war by the exhibition of our unimpaired strength, and splendid training. Never at any period of our history have we been able, even at the outbreak of a war, to boast of a fleet as powerful in numbers and metal as that which floats at Spithead. Such a mighty gathering of first-rates and gun-boats may not for years again be witnessed in these waters; and the rehearsal for the benefit of peaceful spectators of a few mimic episodes in real warfare is an appropriate termination to the series of sterner and more dangerous actions in which the English have lately been engaged'. The Treaty of Paris had recently ended the Crimean War. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.