Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/418

 392 COUNSELS ENDING IX TlIM CiiAP. able to iini)riiit upon his features the marks of ^- painful anxiety. To hiyh intellectual power he added the firmness of a reasouer who liolds that there can be no sect in mathematics, and that (jpinions carefully formed must not he dominated by mere results. As might be expected, he was master of the science of the military engineer; but his nund, ranging freely beyond his own branch of the service, had become stored with the many kinds of knowledge which concern the whole business of war. He wrote with clearness, with grace, and so persuasively that, having a pen in his hand, he was liable perhaps to be drawn into error by the cogency of his oN'n arguments. He was daring and resolute; and, since his mind had been formed at a time when England was not only in a robust and warlike condition, but also in some degree careless of the lives of common soldiers and workmen, it is probable that he could have easily brought himself to make a great sacri- fice of life for a great purpose ; and the power to do this, where a strong place has to be taken, i.'^ one of no little worth. jMoreover, it is believed that Sir John Burgoyne was not without that wholesome ambition which, if the command of an army had chanced to fall to his lot, might have impelled him to great acliievenients.* It is possible that l)ecause he was the commanding engineer with Eraser's expedition 1o Egypt, and ing under Lord Raglan, that, under possible circumstances, he might have succeeded to the command, 'i'hc Duke of New- castle imagined that Ijeeause Burgoyne was an engineer officer,
 * He was at one time so nearly the senior general officer serv-