Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/439

APPENDIX, NOTE TO PREFACE. A Question of Officud Nomenclature. When the newly appointed commander of an English army in war-time was preparing to take the field, he used to receive two Letters (one coming soon after the other) from two of our public offices; and in 1854, the long-accustomed practice was followed; but a question respecting the name rightly given to each of these instruments was lately raised with solemnity by a writer in the ' Edinburgh Review ; ' and although I so worded my statement as to avoid committing myself to any question of nomenclature, I yet, to clear away any haziness resulting from a doubt about names, will show how the matter stands. The first of the two documents in point of date was one never signed, as the Edinburgh critic imagined, by a ' Secretary of ' State,' and besides never issued, as the hasty Reviewer believed, from the office of the Secretary of War, but from an establish- ment of secondary rank — from, in fact, that establishment busied in keeping certain money accounts which used to pass as the ' War Office,' and was imder the rule of a chief called the Secre- tary at War. The Letter ran thus : — ' War Office, April st, 1854. ' My Lord, — The Queen having been pleased to appoint your ' Lordship to serve on a particular service, with the local rank of ' general upon the Staff of the Army, with a military secretary, ' four paid aides-de-camp, and four extra unpaid aides-de-camp, ' I am commanded to acquaint your Lordship that it is Her ' Majesty's pleasure that you do obey such orders as you shall