Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/457

 APPEND] 435 the proof's, nay it was even unanimously acknowledged that Lord Cardigan rode into the battery ; and the highly favourable comments of the Lord Chief Justice added largely to the advantage thus gained by the plaintiff ; but, on the other hand, the substance of the charge which had been brought against Lord Cardigan — the charge of having prematurely retreated — remained still upheld against him as a charge deliberately persisted in by his adversary, and one which now rested no longer upon the mere assertion of an author narrating what he had heard from others, but — upon the testimony of numbers of men who (having at the time of the battle held various ranks in the army from that of the Lieutenant-General commanding the cavalry down to the private soldier) declared upon oath that they had seen with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, the things to which they bore witness. Upon the whole, the upshot of the litigation was that, ostensibly, and so far as concerned the immediate impres- sion of the public, Lord Cardigan was clearly the gainer ; and yet by the very process which brought him this ad- vantage he had provoked into existence a mass of sworn and written testimony which, though judged to be out of place in the particular suit of Cardigan v. Calthorpe, might nevertheless be used against him with formidable effect in any other contention. When I had imparted to Lord Cardigan my idea of the state in which his military reputation was left by all this sworn testimony, he caused to be prepared some ' statutory ' declarations' by persons present in the combat, and laid these before me with great numbers of other documents. Tn fairness, these counter-declarations should be read as a sequel to the affidavits filed in Cardigan v. Calthorpr:. * lished, I should wish, in justice to the memory of Lord Cardigan, to haw the declarations which were laid before me printed in the same volume.
 * Accordingly, if a report of the trial with copies of the affidavits be pub-