THE COMBINED FLEET.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2105, 22 November 1880, Page 3

THE COMBINED FLEET.

In a descriptive letter from Gravosa, tho “ Times ” correspondent remarks that such a spectacle as is there presented had not only never been seen on any part of the Mediterranean shores before, but was probably quite unique in the world’s history. He runs through the list of the chief men-of-war : To begin with Austria, who, as host of the other ships, should have precedence. Hero lies the massive and somewhat unwieldy Oustozza, whioh did suoh good service at Lissa, her very name recording one of the Austrian victories in Northern Italy ; and close to her lies the Palestro, a vessel whioh saw the successes of the Oustozza at that great naval action, and was for a short time actually engaged against her, until, seeing the hopelessness of the affair, she was withdrawn. Within pistol shot lie vessels whose names commemorate services of great generals, if we may apply the term general to a patriot in one case—namely, Landon and Zremji, the latter having been a Hungarian of much note, the echo of whose fame, however, has not sounded far out of his own land. Not far from these ships lies the Prinz Eugen, called after the bold and dashing soldier whom France and Germany and Russia will remember for years to come. Next we may mention the Victoria, a German corvette called after our own most gracious queen. Near the Victoria, by a happy coincidence, is the vessel bearing tho name of that Queen’s loved daughter, Alexandra, a powerful ironclad carrying the flag of the Oommander-in-Chief, Sir Frederick Beauchamp Seymour, K. 0.8. The next English vessel is the Temeraire, called after a celebrated vessel captured from the French, and immortalised by the magic pencil of Turner in that gorgeous sunset picture, where the old worn-out and battered mlkis being “ towed to her last berth.” Near her, too, is the Coquette, recording another French capture, while the men-of-war of that nation bear the names, one of a general who inflicted groat losses on a very old enemy, the other of a great victory. The Russian vessels have no special interest about them, nor are they ships which can be called men-of-war in the acceptation of fighting ships. The flagship Bvetland may by courtesy be called a frigate, for she certainly carries guns on the main deck, is ship-rigged, and has a frigate’s complement of 450 men; but would in England be classed as a nondescript hybrid between a transport and a frigate, or probably not classed at all. She is not at all smart either in appearance or in drill. Tho other Russian, Jemtschony, is a corvette. The writer says he only repeats the continuallymade remarks of the dwellers on shore in reporting that they see in the English ships, and notably in the conduct of the crews when ashore, the result of a state of high discipline and order which the other nations cannot approach.