Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/456

 434 APPENDIX. book that Lord Cardigan so retreated without having entered the battery. In 1863, Lord Cardigan applied in the Court of Queen's Bench for a criminal information against Colonel Calthorpe, and supported his complaint by affidavits which proved that he had not only entered the battery, but had passed on, some way, beyond it. Colonel Calthorpe being satisfied with the proofs which his adversary had adduced upon this particular point, acknowledged his mistake so far as concerned the spot where Lord Cardigan's retrograde movement began, and declared himself * satisfied that the Earl of Cardigan entered ' the Russian battery,' but he firmly persisted in maintain- ing that Lord Cardigan had retreated prematurely ; * and in support of that contention, he adduced a mass of evi- dence which went to show that whilst the 4th Light Dragoons and the 8th Hussars were in the act of advancing towards the battery, Lord Cardigan rode by, on his way to the rear. Moreover, to show at how early a moment Lord Cardigan had retired, he adduced an affidavit by no less a personage than the commander of the whole English Cavalry in the Crimea — that is, by the Earl of Lucan. It was considered that Colonel Calthorpe, having thus partly shifted his ground, could not be allowed, in that suit, to sustain the charge of premature retreat in a new form ; and Lord Cardigan was not called upon to refute, if he could, the evidence which had been adduced against him. So, the change wrought by the litigation was substan- tially this : + On the one hand it had become clear from tho following passage in his book : ' This was the moment when a gene- ' ral was most required, but unfortunately Lord Cardigan was not then ' present.' + The actual decision was that the rule obtained by T<ov<l Cardigan must bo discharged ; but not for reasons founded on anything that oc- curred in the battle. The rule was discharged without costs.
 * This he did by formally declaring in an affidavit his adherence to