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200 THE BATTLE OF INKEKMAN. CHAP. VI. 3d Period. Their reception on the battle-field. Failure of the Englisli endeavours to inalte them advance. surprise of our people — for there was no ques- tion of cavalry charges — the battalion was in hollow square, a formation understood to be chosen for the purpose of maintaining coherence and preventing clandestine evasions. General Bosquet, in person, had not yet come up, and the brigadier, though conspicuous in the field at a later time, was not at these moments pres- ent with either his ' 6th of the line ' or his 7th L^ger. Those English spread about on the Isthmus whom 1 called the ' spent forces,' had not yet been brought back to so strait-laced a state as to be altogether free from the boisterous attributes of a populace, and when the two French battalions came marching up gaily to the sound of their drums and their clarions, they were welcomed into the fight by vehement cheers ; but almost immediately afterwards their popularity fell ; and soon, our people were treating them with almost savage disfavour. All this rage was for no better reason than that the two French battalion com- manders, without sanction from higher authority, could not take on themselves to advance. Both the Duke of Cambridge and Pennefather besought the commander of the '7th L^ger' to move for- ward, but they besought him in vain ; and if the pressure applied by our people to the colonel of the ' 6th ' was even more hard, it still proved equally fruitless. The features of an officer tor- mented by all this urgency might reflect hia distress of mind, and from that cause, present