300 MERIT OF CANROBERT'S ACT. chap, siege duties, and that is exactly what Canrobert ' — in disobedience for once to his Emperor — per- emptorily refused to do.* To the untoward circumstances which con- stituted the fourth of Canrobert's reasons Lord Raglan attached great weight. ' It is evident,' he writes, 'that General Canrobert has felt very ' uneasy since he recalled Admiral Bruat from ' the Kertch Expedition, and that he has been ' very much weighed down by the anxiety this ' has occasioned him, and that he is not sorry to • be relieved from a responsibility which had ' almost overpowered him.' t Whilst agreeing that the remembrance of his secession from the Kertch Expedition was a burthen on Canrobert's mind, one may also give weight to the twelve first words of his third reason, and withal to the now felt ascendancy of General Pelissier. The letter of the 5th of May had dominion, and in every line seemed to show that the writer — not the recipient — was the man who plainly The ment of ought to command. + It is under this aspect that .sdf-sacrl- * General Canrobert's surrender of the command to Pelissier seems loyal, patriotic, and wise. For the honour of the French army, it was necessary to shelter it from the dictation of an incompetent sovereign undertaking to wield it from Paris. To give it the shelter thus needed, and to con-
- See ante, p. 292
+ Lord Raglan to Secretary of State, Secret, May 19, 1855. X See last letter of Pelissier's, ante, p. 285.
