APPENDIX. 405
- I could spend money witliout going throngh the regular forms.' —
Seb. Connn., 2d Rep., p. 410. Note 25. — A saying recorded by Mr Sidney Herbert, and men- tioned by him before the Sebastopol Committee. Note 26. — Our troops quartered in Great Britain were supplied by arrangements concerted between the Board of Ordnance and the regiment. The Ordnance, after communication with the regi- mental commander, made the requisite Contract, and the rest of the task was mainly perfonned by the regimental quartermasters. Note 27.— Su- Arthur Wellesley, I think, laid it down that although Portugal could furnish all the supplies required for 30,000 men, the formation of a Commissariat body competent to acquire, to collect, to move, and distribute such supplies, would be an affair of two or three years. Note 28. — Under its Commissariat aspect, the Talavera cam- paign was beyond measure disastrous. Sir Arthur Wellesley had trusted for food to some promises made him by Spaniards in authority ; and our soldiery — starving — paid the penalty of his mistake. See Napier's ' Peninsular War.' Note 29. — Of course, during peace-time, the duties of Com- missariat officers in the Colonies had not been in most respects similar to those they would have to perform in a campaign ; but there was evident advantage in obtaining the aid of gentlemen already engaged in this department of the public ser^dce. Note 30. — Thus, after a while, the arrival of competent men withdrawn from the Colonies enabled Sir C. Trevelyan to raise the number of Commissariat officers sent to the East from 40 to 49 ; but by that time the army they had to supply had swollen, I think, to a strength of 20,000. Note 31. — The change which withdrew the Commissariat from the Treasury to place it within the realms of the War Depart- ment, was theoretically ordained in the course of the summer, but was not to come into operation until the 22d of December 1854, and did not practically do so even then. See post, Note 35. Note 32. — The invaluable principle requirhig that there shall be unity in the Government, or, in other words, that its members snail act homogeneously, is, as we all know, of modern growth, and its acceptance seems to have resulted — not at first from sound reasoning, but — from the practice long enforced by the persona)
