About 10 o’clock in the morning, the Queen, her husband, her family, and her Russian and German guests, bore down in the Royal yacht on Admiral Cochrane’s flagship, the _Duke of Wellington_. Having remained on board her for some little time, they returned to the yacht, and then, led by the Queen in the _Victoria and Albert_, this invincible Armada put out to sea in two divisions. The weather was exceptionally fine, and most majestic was the progress of the fleet as it steamed, at the rate of eleven miles an hour, down to the Nab, where it formed line with an ease and precision of movement that astonished all beholders. Then “the enemy,” under Admiral Fanshawe, were sighted, and a memorable sham fight began amidst cyclopean thunders of artillery. When it was over, each ship made for port at racing speed, the winner being the _Agamemnon_. The effect of it all, not only on the Queen’s guests but on the country, was duly reported by Prince Albert to Stockmar, who replied, “I am well pleased that the ladies (the Russian princesses) should have been present at the manœuvres of the fleet. For what the eyes see that does the heart believe, and with what that is full of the mouth will overflow in letters to St. Petersburg.”[130] At this time the political barometer at Court was pointing to “fair,” and the Queen and Prince Albert were congratulating each other that the acceptance of the Vienna Note by Russia, would settle honourably the Russo-Turkish dispute. Though the evacuation of the Principalities was not insisted on in that Note as it ought to have been, the Queen and her husband alike regarded it as a _sine quâ non_, and never doubted that Russia would withdraw her army of occupation.[131]