Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/456

 414 APPENDIX. factory ; for it entitles me to beiieve that none of the officers I speak of are now at variance with me upon any- grave matters of fact ; and yet (as will he seen, I think, from the purport and from the scantiness of the very few notes now appended) I have been able to stand fast to the tenor of the narrative as given in the first and second editions. It was in the nature of things than an honest comparison of the impressions of several eyewitnesses should throw more and more light upon the matters to which it related ; but the farther and more minute facts thus brought to my knowledge have not proved to be of such a kind as to contravene the narrative. On the con- trary, their tendency has been to elucidate its meaning, and to strengthen its outlines. So, by merely inserting a few foot-notes, I have been able to give to the public the fruit of the discussion which has been going on, and to do this, as I have already said, without resorting to the plan of withdrawing any words from the text. ADVERTISEMENT TO FOURTH EDITION. In this edition many notes have been added ; and there is a sentence in the second volume which has been moved forward to a page further on. The spelling of the names of several English officers, and of one foreigner, has been corrected. Not a word has been withdrawn from the text, and not a word has been added to it. Of the notes, there are some few which correct or qualify the words of the text. For a book which chances to be a subject of controversy, this way of setting right all mistakes is, I think, the fairest and best. Far from hiding the mended spot, it makes the newly-found truth more conspicuous than it would have been if it had been