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 304 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, this particular officer was the very one who TX ' could not be spared. Irrespectively of the injury that the Quarter- master-General's Department would have suf- fered from being deprived of its chief, there was a yet graver evil that must needs have been wrought by taking him away from Head- quarters. The assistance he was able to give in carrying out the will of Lord Kaglan had grown to be beyond measure precious. Lord Raglan, it is true, had an extraordinary capacity for work which his sixty-six years had not per- ceptibly lessened, but his immense and multi- farious tasks were of such a kind that they necessarily kept him long at his desk, and it was of infinite moment that he should be able to multiply himself by the aid of a highly qualified officer in whom he could thoroughly General trust. General Airey was the officer needed, ^^^^' In liis sound, rapid judgment, his tact, his knowledge of men and of army business, in his high breeding, his power of composing differences, in the clearness and impulsive force which marked his delivery of orders, and withal, in his peculiar, constitutional eagerness for swift, active move- ment and bodily work, he had the very assem- blage of personal gifts best adapted for enabling a devoted subordinate to execute the will of his chief. Of course under such conditions, supposing them known to our Government, no Minister would have imagined the outrage, or rather the crime, of wantonly withdrawing from Lord Rag-