Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/78

 iimrcasf of the array. 48 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND CHAP. l">e sincerely intending to engage in a war. ^forn- • over, the slcnderness of the addition which the Ministers Govcminent proposed to make to our army tended (letennine '^ ^ •' to propose ^^ prolonq,' the Czar's fond confidence in tlic ^veiffht nut a. siiiall 1 C3 o and strength of the English Peace Party ; and perliaps this dangerous error was strengthened, if Baron Brunnow was able to tell him that, in proposing to the Cabinet a material increase of our land-forces, the Duke of Newcastle stood al- most alone. Continuance The Prime Minister's continued persistency in Aberdeen's thc usc of hurtful language was another of the imprudent t-i •hit t i i /- iti language. causcs which Still hclpcd to kccp the Czar blind- fold. Lord Aberdeen abhorred the bare thought of war ; and he would not have suffered his country to be overtaken by it, if the coming dan- ger had been of such a kind that it could be warded off by hating it and shunning its aspect. But it is not by intemperate hatred of war, nor yet by shunning its aspect, that war is averted. Almost to the last, Lord Aberdeen misguided him- self. His loathing of war took such a shape that he could not and would not believe in it ; and when at last the spectre was close upon him, he covered his eyes and refused to see. Basing himself upon the thouglitless saying of a states- man, who had laid it down that there could be no war in Europe when France and England were agreed, he seems to have imagined that, although he was suffering himself to be drawn on and on into measures which were always becoming less and less short of war, still he could maintain