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 IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 95 To a man looking back upon the past, it seems chap, strange that a Cabinet of English Statesmen could '. have been led to adopt this singular policy. It |,oi°.y the would seem that, with many of the Cabinet, the c"l!l„"t"" tendency of the measures which they were sane- '^"^'•^'^ tioning was concealed from them by the gentle- ness of the incline on which they moved; and if there were some of them who had a clearer view of their motives, it must be inferred that they acted upon grounds not yet disclosed to the world. Of course, what the welfare of the State required was a Ministry which shared and hon- oured the public feeling, without being so carried down by it as to lose the statesman's power of understanding and controlling events. But this was not given. Of the bulk of the Cabinet, and possibly of all of them except one, Lord Claren- don's pithy phrase was the true one. They drifted. Wishing to control events, they were controlled by them. They aimed to go in one direction ; but, lapsing under the pressure of forces external and misunderstood, they always went in the other. The statesman who Nvent his own way was one TheMinistM whose share in the governance of events was not his own way. much known. He was supposed to be under a kind of ostracism, lie had not been banished from England, nor even from the Cabinet ; but, holding office under a Prime jMinister whose views upon foreign policy were much opposed to his own, and relegated to duties connected with the peaceful administration of justice, it seemed to the