Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/364

 320 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, surface of both space and time ; and there is TX ground for just pride when we learn that, so far as concerns the integrity and the honour of our public servants, the fierce, searching light thus unsparingly thrown on their conduct disclosed no one evil spot. it8 report. When the labour of examining witnesses had at length been brought to a close, the duty of framing a draught-report for the approval of the Commit- tee, devolved on Mr Koebuck the chairman. His draught, however, was rejected by the Committee ; and with only a few alterations, the draught proposed by Lord Seymour became their adopted report. (S^) The Committee did not make its report an entirely complete exposition, because there were some branches of the subject which could not well be elucidated without the aid of public servants then on duty in the east of Europe; and this absence of competent witnesses was besides, as may well be supposed, a cause of some errors. Thus, for instance, the Committee erroneously connected the want of a good com- munication from Balaclava to camp with the illness of the Quartermaster-General, and inti- mated an opinion — afterwards proved to be un- founded — that a metalled road might have been constructed by the aid of hired labour, obtained from Constantinople or from England ; but upon the whole, and considering the fierce, angry dis- cussions simultaneously going on out of doors, there seems to be good ground for saying that, as moulded by the governing hand of Lord Sey-