On the 30th of October the new Coal Exchange, opposite Billingsgate, was to have been opened by the Queen in person. A slight illness--an attack of chicken-pox--compelled her Majesty to give up her intention, and forego the motherly pleasure of seeing her two elder children, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, make their first appearance in public. Prince Albert, with his son and daughter, accompanied by the Duke of Norfolk as Master of the Horse, drove from Buckingham Palace at twelve o'clock, and embarked on the Thames in the royal barge, "a gorgeous structure of antique design, built for Frederic, Prince of Wales, the great-great-grandfather of the Prince and Princess who now trod its deck." It was rowed by twenty-seven of the ancient craft of watermen, restored for a day to the royal service, clad in rich livery for the occasion, and commanded by Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence. Commander Eden, superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard, led the van in his barge. Then came Vice-Admiral Elliot, Commander-in-chief at the Nore; next the Lord Mayor's bailiff in his craft, preceding the Lord Mayor in the City barge, "rearing its quaint gilded poop high in the air, and decked with richly emblazoned devices and floating ensigns.... Two royal gigs and two royal barges escorted the State barge, posted respectively on its port and starboard bow, and its port and starboard quarter. The Queen's shallop followed; the barges of the Admiralty and the Trinity Corporation barge brought up the rear." [Footnote: Annual Register.] According to ancient custom one barge bore a graceful freight of living swans to do honour to the water procession. Such a grand and gay pageant on the river had not been seen for a century back. It only wanted some of the "water music," which Handel composed for George II., to render the gala complete.