STATE OF THE CAMPAIGN. 15 the scant numbers uf Peuuelather and the Duke cii a v of Cambridge and of the English reinforcements ' that could be spared from other quarters, it must be owned that he carried this trustfulness to an almost extravagant length.* VI. For some time, the French and the English i.oni uag- commanders had been receiving continuous though cepuon or f • 11- c 1 • p the coiidi- imperfect intelhirence of the reiniorcements poured tionsof into the Crimea ; and so early as two days before the 3d of November the battle, Lord liaglan apparently believed that the positions of the Allies were in peril. As we saw, after the action of the 25th of October he " had reluctantly weakened his too scanty resources on the Chersonese, for the purpose of reinforcing the troops which guarded his port of supply ; and the still retained strength of the Eussians in the neighbourhood of Tchorgoun had ever since forced him to continue this dangerous severance without making him sure after all that Balaclava might not be the sul)ject of a formidable attack, but also, as he well understood, the blow might per- haps be delivered upon the Inkerman ridge, and in that case would fall, to begin with, upon the few weak battalions of his 2d Division. Yet, despite the extreme insufficiency of the force
- That in spite of Lord Raglan's instances Canrobeit had
hitherto withheld all aid from the endangered position of tho English, see Lord Raglan's letter of the ?d November, quoted post, p. 16,
