Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/79

ENGLISH WAi; ADMINISTRATION. 35 mislead him, for both these, aud the other Com- CHAP. missariat ojfficeis who subsequently acceded to _ the force, proved to be not only (as might have been taken for granted) men of high integrity, but extremely able and active. The number of officers, much too scanty at first, was soon ren- dered more and more insufficient, not only by illness and death, but also by those changes of the Government plans which increased the strength of the army sent out from 10,000 at first to 26,000 soon afterwards, and ultimately to a yet greater strength ; so that the accession of officers from time to time returning from the Colonies was always much more than counter- poised by the augmented demands of an aug- mented army.(^^) Again, it proved difficult to raise in these islands a fitting number of the ' subordinates ' through whom the Commissariat officers would have to perform their work ; but some competent men were obtained by drawing them from the ranks of the police, as well as from other sources ; and in the end there resulted a Commissariat force much too scanty, it is true, in the number of its officers and English ' sub- ' ordinates,' and, of course, as a body, much want- ing in that priceless experience which their chief and a few others possessed, but, upon the whole, . so able and willing that (with the aid of the foreign assistants from time to time hired) they found means to achieve an amount of difficult and intricate work which, in proportion to their numerical strength, may be soberly described as immense, and this too (so far as I know) with-