The review of the Fleet at Spithead on Saturday last
undoubtedly gave a greater sense of British power to the delegates than any other sight witnessed by them. They saw ranged in stately lines some hundred and fifty vessels of all sorts, and yet not a single vessel had been put into commission for the purposes of the review. The Admiralty had merely called up the vessels—and not all the vessels—in home waters. Very great interest was shown by the spectators in the submarines and in the ' Dreadnought' and the six other vessels of the ' Dreadnought' type which were assembled on the review water. The submarines passed by the ' Dreadnought' in every phase of submergence. Sometimes these weird vessels stood well revealed, at others nothing but what seemed like a stick—the tube of the Periscope—was visible above the water. After the submarines had gone by, a flotilla of destroyers passed at speed, and each as she passed discharged a torpedo at the Dreadnought' The torpedoes were caught in the wire-netting spread round the great battleship.
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