Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/359

 THE LANDING. 329 Lord Raglan had chosen for the landing of all the chap Allied armies. ^-^'^^- It was arranged that a buoy should be placed off the centre of the chosen ground to mark the boundary between the French and the English flotilla.* The French and the Turkish vessels were to be on the south of the buoy, the British on the north ; and in the evening and night of the 13th the ships and transports of the three nations drew in as near as they could to their appointed landing-places. But in the night of the 13th there occurred a step taken transaction which threatened to ruin the whole Frencii in plan for the lauding, and even to bring the har- '^ '"^ ' mony between the French and the English forces into grievous jeopardy. During the darkness, the French placed the buoy opposite, not to the centre, but to the extreme north of the chosen landing- ground ; f and when morning dawned, it appeared that the English ships and transports, though really in their proper places, were on the wrong side of the buoy — or rather, that the buoy was on the wrong side of them. Whether the act which created this embarrassment was one resulting proper to write a letter to a newspaper on the 18th of March 1863, saying, 'It might suffice for me simply to say that I re- ' member nothing about a buoy ; ' but on the 5th of the follow- ing April ho did me the honour to address a letter to me, in which he said, 'It would seem there was a buoy.' See the correspondence on the subject in the Appendix. — Note to i(h Edition. + See the extract from Lord Eaglan's private letter on this jiibject, which is given in the next footnote.
 * Captain Mends, Sir Edmund Lyons's flag-captain, thonglit