30 LONG DELAY. chap, strength of will, and set purpose sufficing to carry ' along with them 'the Government' of what used to pass for a sober monarchical State. So high, so seemingly absolute was the warrant his assailants obtained for the cry they set raging against him, that two successive Administrations at home per- sistently, angrily laboured to deprive our head- quarters of his services, and were only prevented from thus doing grievous harm to their country, because met and baffled by Lord Raglan's un- shaken firmness, and fairly conquered at last by the sure yet slow progress of truth.* The envoy was General Airey. General Canrobert on the 1st of January had insisted with energy that the arrangements then made should be ' instantly ' carried into effect ; but his words, as it happened, were followed by Long delay, immensely protracted delay. The stress of hard winter, the sufferings of the troops, the throes of that vital, that painful, that dangerous question between General Canrobert and Lord Raglan, which we saw lasting on till the latter part of the month, ( 10 ) the harassing communications from the French Emperor, now gravely alarmed — alarmed, it was said, for his ' dynasty ' — the per- turbing foreshadow of a general coming out to the Crimea from Paris with full power, as was thought, to ' advise,' to conduct an inquisition in camp, nay even indeed to 'reorganise' the staff of Canrobert's army, the arrival on the 27th of January of General Xiel, the engineer officer
- See vol. vii. chap. ix.
