Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/300

 2G8 COMMENCED EXPEDITION TO KERTCH. chap, expressed in his last communication, Lord Raglan x ' vvas sternly reserved, and did not undertake to do more than convey to Admiral Lyons the terms of Canrobert's letter.* VII. ' I cannot say,' wrote Lord Raglan to Admiral Lyons, 'how deeply I deplore this unexpected ' interruption of an enterprise from which I ' anticipated not only success, but the most ' important consequences. My only consolation ' is that both you and I have done our utmost ' to. forward an object which the Government ' had much at heart.' t venture- But Lord Raglan gave more than condolence. some course „. . ,, . i n ,-i takeuby Perceiving at once the wide scope ot the niis- ia^ ag " chiefs, the troubles, the dangers with which the Great Alliance was threatened by this French secession occurring — and perforce with publicity — in the midst of a warlike enterprise, he was not a man to sit moaning over such a ' dispensation ' without an effort of will to lessen or avert the misfortune ; nor again was he one who, in such a condition of things, could fail to be thinking of our Admiral (Lyons) or of Sir George Brown — they were, both of them, his personal friends — now about to be overtaken at sea by the palsying words of arrest despatched to Bruat t Ibid.
 * Lord Raglan to Admiral Lyons, 4th May 1855, £ past 3 a.m