Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/431

 THE 17TII OF OCTOBER. -101 were people so constituted as to be able to believe chap. that walls built by Paissian contractors, though ^ faced with a semblance of stone, would turn out to be formed, in the main, of some rotten and costless material, very soft to the touch. Any at- tempt which should seek to open a way for the fulfilment of hopes like these would, of course, be empirical, but would not, for that reason only, be necessarily unwise. On the contrary, the genius and the enterprise of the seamen, whether Eng- lish or French, gave a naval commander some right to trust that, although he might enter upon an attack without being able at first to pursue a well-defined purpose, he yet, having freedom of action, might so use the chances of combat as to be borne onwards to victory by the inspirations that come in great moments. But, unhappily for the Allies, their vast naval strength was so used that, instead of being free to seize upon occasion, and to act in that spirit of enterprise which might compensate for the want of fixed purpose, the ships of the whole Frencli fleet and of our Admiral's ' main division ' had to ride at anchor in a formal line of battle, at once so grand and so impotent that there needed the fighting there was by the ships in the Englisli left wing to save the whole business of the en- gagement from being deemed solemnly frivolous. great numbers of men, the Egyptians abandoned the place. In his place in the House of Lords the Duke of Wellington spoke with warm praise of what the navy had achieved upon the coa.st of Syria, but with a great earnestness he added the warning above referred to. VOL. IV. 2 C