A fleet of screw gunboats, numbering nearly a hundred, and having engines of 60 h.p. each, was added to Britain’s naval strength during the war. These vessels were armed with 68- and 32-pounder pivot guns and 24-pounder brass howitzers. “The possession of this force,” according to a contemporary writer, “cannot be too highly estimated. No line-of-battle ship could be safe at 1,000 yards range, and, owing to their light draught of water (four and six feet), they could force their passage through the most shallow of the enemy’s creeks; besides which their 68-pound shells would tell at 4,000 yards upon a ship or arsenal.” Another hundred of these were all but completed, and the whole force was to take part in the great review at Spithead in 1856. “There will also,” said the chronicler, “be a new description of screw-gun despatch vessels, equally elegant and powerful. These beautiful specimens of British naval architecture have been built in the Government and private yards; they will average a speed of 16 knots an hour, and will mount five of the heaviest pivot guns. In addition to these there will be one hundred iron and wood mortar-vessels of the most powerful build, each armed with a 18-inch mortar, weighing five tons, besides half a dozen mortar-frigates (old 42’s converted). To sum up, then, England is prepared with:--Line-of-battle ships, 42; heavy frigates, 56; corvettes, 123; gunboats, 220; mortar-vessels, 100; troop frigates, 10; transports, 340. And nearly the whole of this gigantic force is composed of screw or paddle-box ships, besides an immense reserve. Well may Russia be desirous of coming to terms.”