Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/24

 XX THE SOURCES OF THE NARRATIVE. impatience which all this delay had provoked. Hut with a singleness of purpose and a strength of will which remind one of the great soldier who was her father's brother, she answered that, the papers having once been placed under my control, she would not disturb me with expressions of impatience, nor suffer any one else to do so with her assent. I cannot be too grateful to her for her generous and resolute trustful- ness. If these volumes are late the whole blame rests with me. If they are reaching the light loo soon the fault is still mine. Knowing Lord Raglan's habits of business, knowing "his tendency to connect all public transactions with the labours of the desk, and finding in no part of the correspondence the least semblance of anything like a chasm, I am led to believe that, of almost everything concerning the business of the war which was known to Lord Raglan himself, there lies in the papers before me a clear and faithful record. In this mass of papers there are, not only all the Military Reports which were from time to time ad- dressed to the Commander of the English army by the generals and other officers serving under him (in- cluding their holograph narratives of the part they had been taking in the battles), but also Lord Raglan's official and private correspondence with sovereign- and their ambassadors ; with ministers, generals, and admirals; with the French, with the Turks, with the Sardinians ; with public men. and official function- aries of all sorts and conditions ; with adventurers ;