Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/94

 62 THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS. CHAP. III. Justice ad- ministered to n. highly placed criminal. to have furnished a sample of good, wholesome justice administered to a highly placed criminal. From that fatal hour in 1853, when he de- spatched Prince Mentschikoff to the Porte, he had been encountering a lengthened series of reverses both diplomatic and warlike ; had been publicly forced to disgorge that 'material tatiously seized ; had been defeated on the Alma, defeated at Inkerman ; had so quickly repressed his outrageous, though not steadfast, pride as to be treating already for peace with invaders close fastened on Eussia ; and now writhing under the agony of a military discomfiture once more in- flicted upon him by the valorous Turks — whom he had thought he could venture to scorn— he died, it seems, at the last from ills due to his sense of disgrace, a humbled, coerced, and even disciplined man, believed by some who well knew him to be conquered in mind, and yearning to end the war on almost heart-breaking terms. Nor did sympathy with the fallen, this time, undo any part of the good that is wrought by chastis- ing great criminals. Men remembered that the Czar had been cruel. We long ago saw that despite his fond love of details connected with soldiering, this Czar was an unwarlike man. Believing that he could best serve his cause by attending to business at home he still — far away at St Petersburg — went on inspecting, inspecting — inspecting troops to the
 * guarantee,' as he called it, which he had osten-