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 CONFERENCES OF GENERALS. 76 hended contingency, and not undertake to avert CHAP. it* _^_ IV. However, the question whether the Allies council ,,,,., . „ assembled, should submit to these agressions was one or but with . . . . little pros- COUrse meriting their omt consideration, and pectof . advantage. accordingly, a Council assembled ; but not with any good prospect of being able to choose a vig- orous course of action ; for it was in the teeth of French troops that the encroachments had been dared ; and, since Canrobert after the morning of the 24th had persistently acquiesced in such measures, no words of any English deliberator, whether uttered in Council or not, seemed likely to change their resolve. The longer our allies acquiesced in the spec- council of tacle of hostile redoubts thus fastened and fast- March. ening on Mount Inkerman, the clearer it seemed that the whole plan of siege which had been adopted on the 1st of January, and ratified on the 2d of February, was being brought under challenge; and, if Todleben had (by witchcraft) been present in the Council of generals which sat at the English headquarters on the 4th of March, he could hardly have failed to exult in that power of his by which he had raised up the fallen, and confounded the design of the victors. The Council included General Canrobert, Lord Raglan, General Bosquet, General Niel, General
 * Niel, p. 157.