2-970-078 - /Heritage Images

The Naval Review: the Signal for the Gun-Boat Attack, 1856. Ships of the Royal Navy take part in a mock naval battle off the coast of Hampshire near Southsea Castle. 'The whole flotilla is provided with high-pressure locomotive boilers - the place necessarily devoted to the machinery rendering this expedient absolutely imperative, to economise the limited area at disposal of the engineers. Yet small as the horse-power appears, the speed of the fleet of gun vessels is by no means contemptible, the average being from seven to nine knots'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.