Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/23

 THE SOURCES OF THE NARRATIVE. Before I had determined to write any account of the war, there were grounds from which many inferred that a task of this kind would be mine ; and I may say that, from the hour of their landing on the enemy's coast, close down to the present time, men, acting under this conviction, have been giving me a good deal of their knowledge. In 1856 Lady Raglan placed in my hands the whole mass of the papers which Lord Raglan had with him at the time of his death. Having done this, she made it her request that I would cause to be published a letter which her husband addressed to her a few days before his death.* All else she left to me. Time passed, and no history founded upon these papers was given to the world. Time still passed away ; and it chanced to me to hear that people who longed for the dispersion of what they believed to be falsehoods, were striving to impart to Lady Raglan the not unnatural
 * I need hardly say that this letter will appear in its proper place.