Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/338

294 TIIK WlNTKli TROUBLES. CHAP. Did Lord raninure read and master this amply ' enliglj telling correspondence ? Strange to say, he did uot.(7i) Hi3de- Lord Panniure entertained a belief that the tho 12th Duke of Newcastle might have avoided coudem- Kfcljruflrv« • • • nation, and averted his fall by turning against Lord Raglan at an earlier period of the cam- paign ; (J'^) and — as though firmly minded to commit no such generous error himself — he made an attack on Lord Raglan the very first act of his reign. Without apparently feeling that enquiry should precede condemnation, without mastering the correspondence which offered him genuine light, and even, strange to say, without waiting for the momentarily expected arrival of Lord Raglan's detailed explanations, (J^) Lord Pan- mure, on the 12th of February, allowed himself to pen the despatch of which we must now see the purport. In this missive, he required from Lord Raglan explanations accounting for the origin and prolongation of the miseries that aSiicted our army. He said he could not find that the Government had been kept informed in a clear, succinct manner with the operations, the progress, or prospects of the campaign ; he complained that Lord Raglan's notices of the condition of Ms army had been brief and un- satisfactory ; he directed that fortnightly returns in a new form should be supplied ; he adverted to some of those winter troubles upon which, in an earlier chapter, I have carefully dwelt; he professed to be sending out an officer of high