Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/345

 THE DEMEANOUR OF ENGLAND. 301 those who at all know the value of a com- CHAP. IX mander's buoyancy of spirit, and of his time and brain-power in the midst of an anxious ^g^in^a campaign, will scarcely help thinking angrily of |aged''!ith a Secretary of State who, whilst keeping Lord to'defeT/ Eaglan in the command of our army, and in- again^sthia volved in close strife with the enemy, could- also l^j^^°l' lay upon him a task so hateful, so barren, so depressing as that of having to avert his glance from the enemy, and face round for an en- counter of words with the Government of his own sovereign. In the third week of March, the despatch Lord Pan- Diure's re- reached Whitehall, and was read by Lord Pan- ception of the (iespatcb mure. Owing wholly to his own sheer neglect of sd March, of the teaching that lay close beside him, he had written in ignorance, and now encountered full knowledge ; giving ear to rank calumnies, he had ventured to be an accuser, and brought down on liimself flat disproof ; but also, to make his plight worse, he had written in the tone that we saw, and now found himself met by liigh-breeding. If only he had been a man like his peers, he would first have suffered the anguish of finding that, for want of due care, he had done a grievous wrong, and then, with a generous readiness, would have hastened to unsay his rash words, adding largely his expressions of regret for the hapless mistake he had made. What he did, however, was this : — In his replying despatch, he harped anew— ^is^^e-^^ not intelligently (^'') — upon the question of the r«piy-