Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/297

 BY THE ALLIED FLEET. 2G7 energy of Lyons, that they failed not to work a chap. deep impression upon the mind of the Duke of '. . ISTewcastle ; and the result was that, upon his sole and undivided responsibility, he ventured to give his conditional warrant to a n^easure of singular boldness. Conceiving that to thwart or obstruct the zeal of Sir Edmund Lyons was to involve the expedition in imminent danger, yet fearing, apparently, that his design, if communi- cated to the Cabinet, would be baffled by the scruples of more timid men, the Duke went the length of intimating — and this without the know- ledge of his colleagues — that he would support Lord Eaglan and Sir Edmund Lyons, if Sir Edmund, in concert with Lord llaglan, should take upon himself to act independently of his chief In other words, the Duke carried his burning eagerness for the public service to the extent of inviting Lyons to enter upon a course of mutinous resistance to the will of Dundas.* 1854, that the Duke gave this bold, nay, as he himself would be the first to say, this lawless undertaking. Without ever disguising for a moment the lawlessness of the proceeding, the Duke often spoke of it to me as one of the acts of his life to which he looked back with pride and satisfaction. I have not at present before me the letter of the 9th of October, for it seems to have been handed by Lord Eaglan to Sir E. Lyons, and the Duke's copy of it (which Mr Gladstone, his executor, at no small cost of trouble to himself, has most kindly en- deavoured to find) will not perhajis come to light in time for publication in this volume. I however have before me a written statement by the Duke of the purport of the letter (given in the Appendix), and also Lord Raglan's reply to it. As may well be supposed, Lord Raglan, ' educated in the strictest school of
 * It was in a letter to Lord Eaglan, of the 9th of October