Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/60

28 CHANGE OF l'l,AN ACCORDINGLY. CHAP, ing provided with the heavy pieces of ordnance as well as the ammunition required, and under- standing that their known want of 'hands' would be made good by French working-parties, our people were happily able to accept the con- dition imposed. ('•') The gravity Thus at last General Canrobert acceded to the of the dangers gist of the counsel long tendered and pressed by averted. Burgoyne ; but of even higher moment, and of more happy augury than the change he so made, was his consequent, though tacit withdrawal of the perilous despatch he had sent hardly two days before to Lord Eaglan's headquarters. What appeared on the Saturday evening to be only too probably the opening of an antagonis- tic correspondence between the French and the English commanders was happily turned into nothingness on the following Monday ; and the almost measureless value of the service Lord Raglan thus rendered will be recognised by any one competent to imagine the train of calamities that might well have been expected to follow any lengthened dissension, or even approach to dis- sension, between the French and the English headquarters. Lord Raglan accomplished his object by boldly taking a course which struck out of the beaten path, and by making that gentle, yet powerful use of sagacity which, until some one called it ' tact,' people hardly knew how to designate. Still, fortune too, under one aspect, may be said to have aided Lord Raglan in this anxious crisis of his relations with the