Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/418

 396 THE RETENTION OF BALACLAVA. CHAP. IV. Conclusive objection interposed by the Com- missary ■ General. Lord Raglan's efforts to provide means of defending Balaclava. Sacrifices necessitated by the re- tention of the place. instructions accordingly. These, however, at night were reversed. Sir Edmund Lyons opposed to the plan an impassioned resistance, which Lord Eaglan, however reluctantly, was prepared, I be- lieve, to withstand ; but there is a carnal Provid- ence which commands the commanders of armies, and he who finally determined the question was the Commissary - General. Mr Filder declared that, without the port of Balaclava, he could not undertake to supply the army. This objection proved conclusive ; and our people with their little army, comprising but 16,000 bayonets, con- tinued to go on labouring with their three heavy tasks — that is, with the siege, with the defence of the Chersonese at its most endangered part, and finally with the defence of Balaclava — an under- taking now raised into one of some magnitude by the close presence of Liprandi's forces. Lord Eaglan thus baffled confronted the peril as best he could, and strained his scanty resources to meet the requirements he had wisely desired to evade. The navy, as ever, was prompt to bring aid. Upon the suggestion of Tatham, a screw line-of-battle ship — the Sanspareil, under Dacres — was sent into the harbour, and in addition to the force of marines already defending the ground, large numbers of seamen were landed. Vinoy, with his whole brigade, was already on the ground, and Sir Colin Campbell had placed at his disposal uncounted battalions of Turks ; but these forces, after all, represented but a part of the sacrifices which the retention of Balaclava in-