Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/250

 206 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, homewards — all this we admirinolv know;(^) IX. . ' ' / l)ut we also know that, in general, he the better achieves these wonders because often, though not indeed always, he has found means of recon- ciling the duties of a trusted correspondent with the duties of a trusted guest received, it may be, in the quarters of some more or less high com- mander, and of course bound to make no dis- closures which might benefit the foes of his host. But in the times of which I write, the then almost new calling of the ' war correspondent ' was only beginning to find its destined place in the world, and no means had, as yet, been dis- covered for enabling him to fulfil his task, yet fulfil it in such a way as to run no risk of do- ing good to the enemy. Lord Eaglan saw and frankly acknowledged the advantage that in one point of view might result from the communica- tions of skilled correspondents whose writings, he thought, would outshine all the letters from wrong-headed officers ; (^) but, as was natural, he retained in some measure the feeling with which his great master Wellington used always to tliink of the press. He indeed felt what — at first mildly — he called the ' inconvenience ' of un- bridled communications from his camp to all the wide world, and could not deny that ill-directed strictures and unfounded attacks on men in authority must do harm ; but when put to the touch, he proved, after all, a great deal more English than military in his ideas, and seems never to have harboured a thought of control-