Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/248

204 THE WlNTEli TKOUBLES. 11. CHAP, If the tone of Lord Raglan's despatches sus- '. tained the composure of the Home Government, fom?pon" '^^d kept it for the time out of mischief, there c^i'mcl"*^ were some of his fellow-countrymen near him whose marplot disclosures seemed likely to bring down, some day, a new onslaught of Russian masses against what remained of our troops ; for observers in camp now announced the weakened state of our army, and their statements being published in London passed thence with electric speed to enlighten and guide the enemy. A free country busied in war against a great Power is apt to yearn after accounts of an}'- momentous campaign with a longing that can scarce be resisted ; and, it being almost a mock- ery to tell impatient enquirers that they must slake their thirst for war tidings with dry, official reports there is hardly any room for believing that intelligence of an informal kind flying homewards from camps and cantonments, can be effectually forbidden or stopped. If no other human agency were in readiness for obtain- ing truths, fables, and comments from the seat of war, there would always be open that source of intelligence which is to be found in the letters of critical and perhaps discontented officers, who, by virtue of the opinions they have formed of their own clear-siglitedness and judgment, hold commissions to narrate what they gather from either observation or hearsay, or from the depths of their own understandings, and to pronounce