Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/318

 288 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS CHAP, to serve nearly as well as one of the French ^^"- lighters.* How they toiled the world will never know, for History cannot pause to see them ran« sacking Constantinople and the villages of the Bosphorus in their search after carpenters and planks ; hut before the appointed time, the whole work was done. This was not all. Sir Edmund Lyons and Sir George Brown propelled the ar- rangements for buying and chartering steamers, trampling down with firmness, perhaps one might say with violence, all obstacles which stood in the way. Of those obstacles one of the most formidable was what was called in those days the 'official fear of incurring responsibility.' Lyons and Sir George Brown taught men that, in emergencies of this sort, they should be pur- sued with the fear of not doing enough, rather than with the dread of doing too much. ' I can- ' not venture,' said a cautious official — ' I cannot Sir George Brown ; ' I buy it in my own name ! ' It is thus that difficulties are conquered. When the restless Agamemnon came back into the Bay of Varna with Lyons and Sir George Brown on board, Lord Eaglan was at the head of a truly British armament. He had the means, by steam- power, and at one trip, to descend upon the • I bflicvo that the merit of inakiug this discovery, and of the irresistible energy by which it was carried into effect, be- longed to Mr lioberls, late a Master in the Navy. See the forcible exposition of Mr Kolierts's services, and of his cruelly frustrated hopes, in a little work called 'The Service and th,e ' Reward,' Ijy Mr George John Cayley.
 * venture to give the price.' ' Then I can,' said