View from Spanish Point, Bermuda, showing the dockyard, and the fleet at anchor in Grassy Bay, 1862. Engraving from a Sketch by G. Remington, jun. The dockyard, Diadem, Nile, Immortalit?, Melpomene, St. George, Hero, Aboukir, Agamemnon...Considerable interest attaches just now to this great naval station of ours in the West...The Bermudas...are situated in the North Atlantic, 580 miles from Cape Hatteras, North America, the nearest point of land, and 645 miles from Atwoods Cays, the nearest of the West India Islands. There is not an insular group in the whole world so protected by nature from the effects of a boisterous ocean as the Bermudas. They are surrounded by dangerous rocky reefs...which render them very difficult of access...large sums have been expended in order to render [Ireland Island] a strong post for a naval and military depot. The whole face of the island has been changed...and all the ingenuity of art and the labour of a large convict establishment have been employed in strengthening this important station...The population of the Bermudas is about 11,000, comprising whites, coloured, and free blacks. These islands have from the first settlement belonged to Great Britain.... From "Illustrated London News", 1862.