Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/403

APPENDIX. 371 probability, would have discovered the error and hastened to repair it ; but then, on the part of the artillery authorities, there occurred those official mistakes (shown post, in the sub-notes to Note 15) which made it appear (though erroneously) that Lord Raglan's commendations applied to the fight of the 13th as well as to that of the 14th. The last and clenching mischance (if so one may call it) was the resolute silence of Captain Oldershaw, who persevered, as we saw, in abstaining from any attempt to set the authorities right. Note 11. — Under him. — I don't except Captain Shaw, who came down at the close of the tight ; because what he witnessed was — not the struggle itself, but — the havoc it had wrought. Note 12. — To make the truth known. — Considering what I have above written on the subject of General Oldershaw's long- maintained abstinence from self-assertion, it may fairly be asked whether his reticence has been continued down to this time, and whether I have been honoured by communications from him on the subject of his fight of the 13th of April in the 'advanced ' No. VII.'? The circumstances are these : I some time ago received a letter from the Provost of Worcester College, Oxford — a gentleman then wholly a stranger to me — in which he did me the honour to suggest that the fight maintained by his cousin Captain (now General) Oldershaw on that 13th April 1855 might deserve my attention ; and he kindly enclosed to me copies of two interest- ing letters on the subject. When afterwards bending my mind to the period in question, 1 became persuaded that it would be right for me not only to speak of the fight in question, but even to lay some stress upon it ; and — preparing a series of questions — I ventured to ask that the Provost would have the kindness to submit these to his gal- lant relative. I suppose that the administration of those questions may have caused the General to reconsider his old determination ; or in- deed he may well have judged that whilst still persevering in his resolve to avoid all complaint, he was not therefore bound to withhold information from one who was only a writer en- deavouring to learn the truth. Be that as it may, the General (who had been previously an entire stranger to me) was so kind as to give me either orally or in writing all the information I from time to time demanded from him ; and it need hardly be said that the knowledge I was thus allowed to acquire extended beyond the mere ' points ' on which I assailed him with questions. All these communications passed between us in the summer and autumn of the present