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 SQFFERINGS OF THE ARMIES. 161 subjects — will stop to hear out the impeachment chap. which scurvy, by its mere presence, brought ^^^^' against the Imperial Government for not duly feeding its troops. Within the whole period of twenty months, which began in November 1854, and ended in June 1856, the ambulances of the French, and four — only four — out of all their twenty-three hospitals received patients afflicted with scurvy — with palpable recognised scurvy — to the number of 23,250 !(35) And none must suppose that the malady smote only those twenty -three thousand who were labelled as men seized with scurvy ; for it is certain that of the other and yet more numer- ous thousands laid low by other complaints, a large proportion were men whose diseases had either been caused, or else in no small measure aggravated by the presence of the scorbutic taint. (3^) On the whole, it is plain that the French Thesuffer- army during this winter was suffering — suffering Filnch cruelly, and suffering too in great measure from ca,u°sedin the inability of the war administrators to supply f^rei'r^' its wants ; but, so far as concerns the first winter, ivefaiiure! it does not therefore follow at once that for this cause alone the administrators were worthy of blame ; for the truth rather is that a strategy both shifting and weak had imposed upon them a task too heavy for due execution within the time sternly limited by man's want of food and warmth. But of course there was less and less ground for absolving the French Govern- ment, or even believing it competent to the VOL. VII. L