XXXI. invasion, which carried with it the virtual renewal CHAP. of an otherwise expiring war, had the sound of that voice with which a nation speaks when the people are of one mind. So now, in presenting to his colleagues this his favourite scheme of an enterprise against Sebastopol, the Duke of Newcastle was upheld nay, was urged and driven forward-by forces so overwhelming, that scruples and objections and fears were carried away as by a flood; and when it was proposed in the Cabinet to go and fetch, as it were, a new war, by undertaking this bold adventure, there was not one Minister present who refused to give his consent. tion of the tions ad to Lord Forthwith the Duke of Newcastle announced the Preparadecision of the Government to the General command- instrucing the English army in Bulgaria. He did this by dressed a private letter written on the 28th of June,* and Raglan. nearly at the same time he prepared the draft of a Despatch* which was to convey to the English headquarters, in full detail and in official form, the deliberate instructions of the Queen's Government. This paper was to be the instrument for meting out to the General in command the allowance of discretion with which he was to be intrusted. A Despatch recommending the expedition, but leaving to the General in command the duty of determining whether * The contents of this will be given in another chapter. Invasion of the Crimea. III. 7 XXXI. CHAP. it could be prudently undertaken, would not have been followed by any invasion of the Crimea; and that which brought about the event was, not the decision of the Cabinet already mentioned, but the peculiar stringency of the language which was to convey it to the English headquarters.* It therefore seems right to speak of what passed when the terms of this cogent Despatch were adopted by Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet. The Duke of Newcastle so framed the draft as to make it the means of narrowing very closely the discretion left to Lord Raglan; and it was to be expected that the Duke might wish his Despatch to stand in this shape, because he was eager for the undertaking, and very willing to bear upon his own shoulders a large share of the responsibility which it entailed; but it is difficult to believe that all the other members of the Government could have intended to place the English General under that degree of compulsion which is implied by the tenor of the instructions. It is certain, however, that the paper was well fitted to elicit at once the objections of those who might be inclined to disapprove it on account of its cogency; for it confined the discretion to be left to the General with a precision scarcely short of harshness. The truth of this statement will be shown, as I think, in a future chapter, and, indeed, it is well enough proved by the tenor of Lord Raglan's reply to the despatch. XXXI. The Duke of Newcastle took the Despatch to CHAP. Richmond, for there was to be a meeting of the members of the Cabinet at Pembroke Lodge, and he intended to make this the occasion for submitting the proposed instructions to the judgment of his colleagues. It was evening a summer evening — and all the members of the Cabinet were 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 it had happened in old times, it would have been attributed to the direct intervention of the immortal gods. In these days, perhaps, the physiologist will speak of the condition into which the human brain is naturally 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 narcotic 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 composing 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 continued, all the members of the Cabinet, except a small minority, 7* CHAP. Instructions sent to the French com mander. 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 evening, and in another room, the Duke of Newcastle made another and a last effort to win attention to the contents of the draft, but again a blissful rest (not this time actual sleep) interposed between Ministers and cares of State; and all, even those who from the first had remained awake, were in a quiet, assenting frame of mind. Upon the whole, the Despatch, though it bristled with sentences tending to provoke objection, received from the Cabinet the kind of approval which is often awarded to an unobjectionable sermon. Not a letter of it was altered; and it will be seen by-and-by that that cogency in the wording of the Despatch, which could hardly have failed to provoke objection from an awakened Cabinet, was the very cause which governed events. The instructions addressed from Paris to the French commander did not urge him to propose the invasion of the Crimea, nor even to lend the weight of his opinion to the proposed enterprise; but they forbade him from advancing towards the Danube. If it should be clear that the English were willing *See Note in the Appendix. |