50 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAPTER IV. A RETROSPECTIVE ENQUIRY. CHAP. Few will say that in outward appearance, th€
- old official machinery which England brought out
for use when taking up arms against Russia was a set of State engines well fitted for carrying on with effect the administrative business of war ; but ' did not some such system exist, and was ' it not made to work brilliantly, in what have ' been called the great days ? ' Many not only ask the question, but, until they are answered, prove loath to think ill of administrative institutions which sufficed, they imagine, for Pitt, and furnished means of action to Wellington. On the whole, it seems right that, although inviting a glance thrown back into earlier times, the question should not go unanswered. First, then, did not some such system exist ? Our system We sliall sec. The ' personal kino- ' then, as of War ad- luiniatratiou aftcrwards, through his own Royal Office — the
