Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/161

 WAY OF MINISTERING TO THE ARMIES. 117 and accordingly, it would be wrong to imagine chap. that on the 13th of September and in the course. of the eight following weeks, Mr Filder was asking for hay which he represented to be surely and absolutely needful, or that the Treasury ever thought for an instant of resisting any such prayer. What Mr Filder during these eight weeks desired, was to secure by his appeals to the Treasury, a supply of hay which, when added to his accumulations of forage obtained from other sources, would give him a surplus in readi- ness to meet any unforeseen exigencies ; and it was only from the effect of the subsequent loss inflicted by the storm of November that the want of the margin he had sought to provide became a real, present calamity. The hand which transacted the business in question was that of Sir Charles Trevelyan, the Assistant-Secretary ; but, since he, after all, was only a subordinate officer, we ought to see who presided over that great department of State which thus fenced, if so one may speak, with Mr Filder's demands. The Department was constitutior IP IT of the ostensibly governed by a Board of public ser- Treasury, vants called ' The Lords of the Treasury ; ' and again, this Board was controlled by its two chief members — namely, the ' First Lord,' and the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; who accordingly, if so they had chosen, might have watched and carefully guided the operations of Sir Charles Trevelyan. They did not so watch or so guide him ; but before exclaiming too loudly against Lord Aberdeen and Mr Gladstone for neglecting