Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/327

 THE EMBARKATION. 297 cavalry.* A large portion of the rrench troops chap. were put on board ships of war,-|- and other por- z^ tions were distributed among a great number of sailing-vessels. Some of these were very small craft. Attached to the French army, and placed un- der the orders of Marshal St Arnaud, there was a force of between 5000 and 6000 Turkish infantry. These men were embarked mainly or entirely on board Turkish vessels of war. Sir Edmund Lyons was charged with the duty of embarking the English forces ; and having first got on board our 60 pieces of field-artillery, com- pletely equipped, with the full complement of horses belonging to every gun, he proceeded with the embarkation of the 22,000 infantry and the full thousand of cavalry which Lord Eaglan intended to move from Bulgaria to the coast of the Crimea. To put on board ship a body of foot-soldiers is comparatively a simple process ; but the shipping of horses involves so heavy a cost, so great an exertion of human energy, that he who under- takes such a task upon anything like a large scale escort duty ; but of course I do not regard this as an exception to the statement that 'no cavalry was embarked.' + Our naval officei-s are strongly opposed, to the practice of putting troops on board ships of war. They are not the men to set their personal convenience against the exigencies of the public service, but they cannot endure that the eflBciency of a man-of-war should be for one moment suspended. It is well ascertained, too, that the presence of a great number of sol- diers — men who, for the time of the voyage, are almost neces- sarily idlers — is injurious to the discipline of a ship.
 * They took with them from SO to 100 horsemen to perform