Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/308

 27S TIIH GARRISON REINFORCED CHAP. ])roini3e to summon a council of war gave little ^'^" or no room lor thinking that perhaps his judg- ment might Lend. It rather tended to show that he meant to have his will ratified.* But the defeat he had sustained in hattle, and also, perhaps, his long absence from the scene of the impending conflict, must have been lessening the ascendant of the Paissian Commander, and making it more and more hard for him, not onlv to persist in maintaining what to most men must seem an outrageous resolve, but to do this in de- fiance of the hero who had been raised to a great lieight of power by the devotion of the garrison, and all the people around him. Theremon- And Koruiloff uow took a step which seemed ].rep!uea by to providc that, in case of Sebasto})ors falling for want of aid from the army, the truth should be visibly extant. Pie framed and signed a remon- strance against the plan of continuing to withhold the entire field army i'rum the defence of Sebas- topol. The paper was to be handed in to the promised council of war ; but Korniloff apparently intended that, whether he were destined to sur- vive, or to perish along with the fortress, his words shoidd go to the Czar, f instrument by which Prince MentschikofT enforced his fore- gone and foreknown determination to sink the ships. + This remonstrance is signed by Korniloff, and dated 'Se- ' bastopol, 19th September [i.e., 1st October] 1854.' It con- tains 80 anthentic a statement of the straits to which the gar- rison was reduced in the last days of September, that I have caused it to be inserted in the Apiiendix.
 * It will be remcinljfi'ed that a council of war was the very