Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/459

 APPENDIX. 417 author can hardly expect to be looked upon as a good judge of what is, or is not, an honest abridgment 01 statement of his words ; but I may be allowed to adduce two curious instances of the errors into which men may be led by look- ing to the accounts which have been given of a book instead of to the book itself. On the 15th of February, a stranger, who had been pre- sent at the battle of the Alma, addressed to me a letter from a distant foreign station, which began thus : ' Sir, — ' It has not been yet my good fortune to see a copy of your ' recent. . . work, the " Invasion of the Crimea," but a ' critique upon it in the ' (here the writer of the letter gives the name of his newspaper) 'of the 27th of January ' last, purporting to give an outline of some parts of the ' narrative, contains an assertion, made with reference to a ' description of the battle of the Alma — viz., that under 4 the fire sustained by Lord Eaglan's Headquarter Staff, ' " not a man of it received a scratch," — which I take to The writer proceeds to state, with admirable clearness, the circumstances which enabled him to speak as an eye- witness of what went on with the Headquarter Staff, and then says : — ' I presume to detail these particulars, in order ' to show, sir, that having thus, like yourself, taken part ' in, and been an eyewitness of, the movements of the ' Staff on the memorable day referred to, I may venture to ' point out how far the statement as to the Staff having ' come out of it scathless seems to be inaccurate ; ' and the writer then proceeds to prove to me, with great clearness and perspicuity, that on the two spots of ground which he rightly and carefully describes, two officers of the Head- quarter Staff were wounded. Supposing that his newspaper was guiding him faith- fully, well indeed might this critic remonstrate with me for the inaccuracy of which he had been led to suppose me VOL. I. 2D
 * be incorrect.'