Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/445

 THE 17TH OF OCTOBfiE. 415 SO powerfully from out of his main division that, chap. besides the Britannia, which carried his Has, he _1 L at last had but two fighting ships — to exhibit, as though for form's sake — in dreary line with the French.* Indeed, the array in which Dundas consented to align with the Trench approached so near, after all, to a mere solemnity, that, hap- pily, scarce one seaman's life was made forfeit to this painful exigency ; f and whilst the ships composing the in-shore squadron, or engaging in support of it, lost nearly 300 in killed and wounded, the sacrifices incurred by those of our ships which remained in the Anglo-French line were only 21 men wounded. I have not concealed my impression that the untoward measure of involving the navy in a combat against the stone forts of Sebastopol was in part brought about by the exceeding zeal of Lyons, by his tardiness in attaining to an ac- sirEdmnr.a curate view of the question, and especially by '^"°*' the attitude of antagonism in which he stood to- wards his chief ; | but if Lyons in this respect Britannia thus employed in prolonging the French line of hat- tie, for by that time the Trafalgar (for the reason stated ante, sec. ii. of this chapter) had hauled off. t It is probable that the fact would warrant me in saying 'not one,' instead of 'scarce one;' but I have qualified the phrase, because I do not know as a certainty that the Queen or the Bellerophon may not have had a seaman killed before mov- ing off to the support of the detached squadron. X With regard to that, and also with regard to the time wlit'u Lyons first perceived the objectionable features of the measure, see ante, chap. xi. and especially his letter of the 16th of Octo- ber there cpioted.
 * After 4 o'clock, he had actually only one ship besides the