Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/168

 138 IIKKOIC KESISTANCE OF SEBASTOPOL tHAP. ill the extreme of daiiffer on the land side, there VI ... ' had come an emergency in which, without lawful authority, Lut for the good of their country, and even for the good of the fleet itself, they — an Ad- miral absent from his assigned station without leave, and a volunteer Colonel of Sappers — could take upon themselves to break up and dismantle an.i .ii.i.iy the wliolc Black Sea fleet, and apply its vast war- soiiices to like treasures to the purpose of the land defences. As soon as they came to sec this — they did nut take in the whole truth quilc at once, but they did by rapid degrees — they had upon them the full burthen of men to whom much is given. 'J'iiey had grace to see that because they could, therefore they must. Todleben judged that upon himself more especially there was cast the duty of drawing without stint upon this mighty resource, and conceived that he ought not to suffer the land defences to want for any one thing which could be supplied by stripping the fleet. In particular he determined to take and use for his })urpose the great guns on board the ships. Governed, as he says, by his perception of two conditions, that is, stress of time on the one hand, and, on the other, the command that he had of all the ships' guns and munitions — he went on to frame his plan for strengthening the lines of de- Theptiii- fence. He resolved 'to clioose a position as little Toiiieben's ' extended and as near to the town as the nature '' ' 'of the ground would allow, and to arm its prin- ' cipal points with a formidable artillery ; to con- ' nect these points one with the other by trenches