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14 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP, being thus established, he never seemed to under- L stand that there could remain any question of propriety, or taste, or right feeling. With attributes of this kind, he was plainly more fitted to obey than to command. Having no personal ascendancy, and no habitual con- sideration for the feelings of others, he was not, of course, at all qualified to exert easy rule over English gentlemen, and his idea of the way to command was to keep on commanding. There surely was cruelty in the idea of placing human beings under the military control of an officer at once so arbitrary and so narrow ; but the notion of such a man having been able to purchase for himself a right to hold Englishmen in military subjection is, to my mind, revolting. Lord Car- digan incurred a series of quarrels, and was re- moved from the command of his regiment; but afterwards, by the special desire of the Duke of Wellington, he was restored to active service. There can hardly have been any well-founded expectation that Lord Cardigan would be able to go through a campaign without engaging in quarrels ; and never, surely, by action or speech, did he convince the dispensers of military author- ity that he was a man who would be competent to meet the emergencies of war with the resources of a fruitful mind. I imagine that the first active Bishop or Doctor of Divinity whom the Com- mander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards might chance to have met on horseback M-ould probably have been much more competent than Lord Car-