Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/114

 70 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, governed by a Public Department enjoying — ^^' through its chief, a member of the ' Government ' and of the Cabinet — the acknowledged confi- dence of Parliament. The other force — that is, the Army — had been, altogether in theory and largely also in practice, a Royal appendage belonging to the * personal king.' Well, the forces had been, both of them, used, and used indeed without stint, but down to the close of 1809 with these widely differing results : The 'State force' — the Navy — victorious in every great battle, and besides in fights unnumbered, had not only conquered for England a proud and happy security, but raised her to a new height of power ; whilst the Army — the Eoyal appen- dage — had too often seemed only to prove that even the most brilliant fighting, if under sinister auspices, is a piteous waste of strength. And — beyond perhaps all other instances — the issue of ' Walcheren ' showed how the nation might throw its strength headlong for want of so simple a guide as the set of reports labelled ' Antwerp ' which, if only it had had the support of a well- ordered War Department, must there have been found complete.(2^) ' With the broadly contrasted results of ' State ' government and ' personal ' kingship written up thus large on tiie wall, it was hard, I suppose, for a statesman in the autumn of 1809 to avoid seeing more or less plainly that our Army — resting less on the Palace and more on the State — should be raised up — at least part way — towards the level always held by our Navy in