Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/291

 BY Till': ALLIED FLEET. 2G1 'to by one whose duty it is to maintain luiiui- CHAP. ' paired tlic renown of the navy ? ' The French Admiral was under the orders of The French Admiral C.eneral Canrobert ; and althoudi Lord liaghm under the ' ° orders of had no actual authority over the English fleet, General ■^ ° Canrobert. lie could speak to its Admiral in the form of re- quest, and that, too, with no little cogency. By character and temperament, no man then living, I think, could have been less inclined than Lord liaglan to press with advice or exhortation upon a colleague of the sister service holding equal command with himself; and the terms of his Lord Ra«. intercourse with Admiral Dundas were not of Admiral . Uuudas. 'such a kind as to lessen his reluctance; but he felt all the weight of that charge to capture Sebastopol, which was given, as he expressed it, by ' the united voice of the Queen, the Govern- ' ment, and the country ; ' and besides, he already perceived that an army nailed fast to the Cher- sonese by the strength of an unperformed vow, must soon be brought into trouble by time and the lapse of the seasons. Therefore it was that, with a degree of urgency to which he but seldom resorted, he resolved to press upon Admiral Dun- das the importance of supporting the efforts of the land forces by the active co-operation of the lleet. It would have been well if the communication needed for tliis purpose had been oral ; and in- deed it must be acknowledged that, at this con- juncture, the feelings which prevented a cordial uiid personal intercourse between Lord Eaglau