Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/279

 rOK THE INVASION. 249 ing — and all the members of the Cabinet were chap. present, when the Duke took out the draft of his !_ proposed despatch and began to read it. Then there occurred an incident, very trifling in itself but yet so momentous in its consequences, that, if occurring under the Olympian Dispensation, it would have been attributed to the direct inter- vention of the immortal gods. In these days, perhaps, the physiologist will speak of the condition into which the human brain is nat- urally brought when it rests after anxious labours, and the analytical chemist may regret that he had not an opportunity of testing the food of which the Ministers had partaken, with a view to detect the presence of some nar- cotic poison ; but no well-informed person will look upon the accident as characteristic of the men whom it befell ; for the very faults, no less than the high qualities of the statesmen compos- ing Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet, were of such a kind as to secure them against the imputation of being careless and torpid. However, it is very certain that, before the reading of the paper had long con- tinued, all the members of the Cabinet, except a small minority, were overcome with sleep.* For a moment, the noise of a tumbling chair disturbed the repose of the Government; but presently the Duke of Newcastle resumed the reading of his draft, and then again the fated sleep descended upon the eyelids of Ministers. Later in the even- ing, and in another room, the Duke of Newcastle
 * See Note in the Appendix.