3-017-201 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Naval Festival at Portsmouth: flight of rockets and illumination of the Allied Fleets at Spithead, 1865. 'As if by magic...every ship in the two squadrons was so illuminated, by means of red, white, and blue lights placed in every port, at both broadsides, and both yardarms, that the object which only a few moments before looked...so grim and shadowy became at once transformed into a ship of light, revealing to view the outline of her slenderest spar. Rockets were then sent up in clusters from the whole of the fleet, which, as they burst in the heavens, expanded into bouquets...and then gradually melted away in the still air, but only to be followed at short intervals by other clusters of rockets bursting and descending in an equally-brilliant shower...as each set of lights died away, and the illumination seemed to be coming to an end, the full blaze of its splendour was again restored with the same magical rapidity with which it was first created...The illumination lasted for about twenty minutes, throughout the whole of which time the St. Vincent, the Duke of Wellington, and the other men-of- war in the harbour, displayed lights at every porthole, causing the gentle ripple on the waves to sparkle like diamonds'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.