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 THE DEMEANOUR OF ENGLAND. 303 I think it may be said to coutain, and the CHaP, evident good feeling that breaks out in its con- eluding sentences. ('^^) If the Government scarce acted in earnest Eagerness of the Qov- when ostensibly attacking their general, there cmment, ,. ., . ' including was no want of bitter reality m their deter- LordPan- ., . . , mure, to mination to expiate the winter calamities bv remove the T T 1 -T-. T ) TT i" Ilcadquartev sacrificing to pubuc anger Lord Eaglans Head- staff. quarter Staff ; and into this chase after ' victims ' the new Minister threw himself with unbecom- ing zeal. To his honour, indeed, he with others resisted the incKnation of Lord Palmerston and some of his closer followers in the Cabinet, who would have liked to enforce a change of the officers surrounding Lord Raglan by a sheer ex- ertion of power, without the assent of the Com- mander, and even in the teeth of his protest ; but it must be added — our public men in those days were not at all brave against clamour — that the chief's earnestly declared approval of the services rendered him by his Staff at Head- quarters was by none of the Ministers held to be a sufficing ground for not trying — in one way or other — to cause the baneful change. Those who made it a condition that Lord Eaglan's assent should be obtained, were willing, nevertheless, to see his assent extorted from him by violent Government pressure. But in the way of this displacement of Lord "^.'i'''.^- Raglan's Headquarter Staff there happily stood stood in one grave obstacle. The outcry had singled out the Quartermaster-General as the functionary to be offered in sacrifice, and it so happened that