Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/273

 ATTACK ON SEBASTOPOL. 243 and whether possibly he might be able to fulfil chap, liis duty without besieging Sebastopol, he was !_ met by the careful negation which taught him in four plain words that he could fulfil it 'by no Before the seventh day from the manifesto of the 15th, the country had made loud answer to the appeal ; and on the 2 2d of June the great newspaper, informed with the deep will of the people, and taking little account of the fears of the prudent and the scruples of the good, laid it down that ' Sebastopol was the keystone of the ' arch which spanned the Euxine from the mouths ' of the Danube to the confines of Mingrelia,' and that 'a successful enterprise against the place ' was the essential condition of permanent peace.' And although this appeal was founded in part upon a false belief — a belief that the siege of Silistria had been raised — it seemed as though all mankind were making haste to adjust the world to the newspaper ; for within twenty hours from the publication of the 22d of June, truth obeyed the voice of false rumours, and followed in the wake of ' The Times.' * Of course there were those who saw great ob- stacles in the way of the proposed invasion ; and they said that, since Russia was a first-rate mili- tary Power, it must be rash to invade her terri- tory and to besiege her proudest fortress, without first gaining some safe knowledge of the euemy'3 • The siege, as we saw above, was raised early on the morn- ing of the 23J.
 * other means.'