Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/117

 THE rOLICY OF SINKING TIIK SlllI'S. 87 fluet could nut but led iluit liLs culliiiff ennoUeJ chap. IV liiin. He could not but know that if lie were to ' be witlidiawn from his ship for land service, he would be in danger of falling to a lower estate. It is true, as we shall very soon see, that al- though put to fight on shore, the seaman did not fail to display his ever-ready resource, his careless, his merry love of danger, his agile and flexible energy, his devotion to warlike duty, and, above all, that valour which could be proof against the sense of being abandoned and sacrificed ; but some, at least, of the qualities thus brought to light on shore, were qualities derived from the sea, and the more the sailor was gifted with these, the greater would be his fall and his loss of self- respect, if — not merely for the one struggle then going on, but I'ur all the rest of his time — he were to become a land-service man, reduced step by step to the mechanised state of the liussian soldier, with nothing but memory, and perhaps some small, cherished relic, to remind him of his good old ship, and the nobler life he had lived in the days of the Black Sea fleet. Therefore more than one train of thought was conducing, it seems, to the grief with which the men saw the ships sunk. But it must be acknowledged that this sinking The policy ° ° of sinking of the ships was a wise measure. It fulfilled two theshipn. great purposes. It closed the entrance of the roadstead against the Allies ; but also, by putting a sure and visible end to the career of the fleet at sea, it brought to bear upon the land defencea