Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/413

 TO SIR GEORUlil CATHCAKT. 391 ' without delay, at your headquarters. — Your most c n a p. ' sincere and devoted friend, ! — COIIIUUSSIOE. (Signed) ' Geo. Cathcart.' Whatever may have been the value of any counsels which Sir George Cathcart was willing to proffer, it is plain that he must have grievously weakened any power of persuasion he had by this display of his feelings; and the note, I think, shows how perniciously the secret of the Dormant Commission had fermented, as it were, in his mind. Now, however, the Commission was to be with- withdrawal T of the drawn. The Government, I believe, had no reason Dormant C}r i iy 1 a air- for becoming dissatisfied with Sir George Cath- cart, but they felt that the step they had taken in secret was one which, if known, would have been cruelly mortifying to Sir George Brown ; and, when they came to hear of the great zeal with which Brown had toiled in preparing for the expedition, and the gallant part he took in the battle of the Alma, they determined to undo their act.* The Duke of Newcastle accordingly requested that Sir George Cathcart would give up the Dormant Commission to Lord Raglan in order that it might be cancelled.-f- This Sir George Cathcart at once did, and nothing could be better than the tone and temper of his letter. ' My dear change. — Private letter to Lord Raglan, 13th October 1854. received the evening of the 26th. « Ibid.
 * The Duke of Newcastle assigns those two reasons for the