Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/118

 74 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, under his management, to have a State engine ^^' performing — not all, but — some part of the work which System — where System exists — would cast on a real War Department. Thobusi- With the means of action afforded them by Snisto' this new official machinery, the Government howeve"!' carried on their war business throughout all Jsompassed the years — the five or six critical years — which }'et had to pass before the second fall of Napo- leon, and achieved the task, if imperfectly, yet at least without hampering Wellington in his steady career of victory by any quite fatal defaults. Means by After passing through their seventeen years of Engund more or less wild ' Expeditions,' and then enter- waTtoaSo- ing upon the grander career laid open to them nous end. ^^ ^^^^.^. 'three new administrative forces,' our people still worked on and on, till at length the time came when — foremost of all the allies — an Eno-lish commander was able to undertake the invasion of France with what he believed to be the ' finest army that man ever led.'(25) England rose, as we saw, to this pitch of military great- ness by the use of aids and contrivances which, because never forming a part of lier permanently established administration, may be rightly called ' adventitious' or otherwise 'make-sliift resources;' and accordingly, a sailor might say of her at the close of the war that she came into port under jury-masts ; but she came in nevertheless — or rather so much the more — with a radiant glory surrounding her, and carried besides such a treas- ure of warlike experience as she never before