Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/135

IN THE WAR AGAINST IIUSSIA. 105 with all these sources of strength, he began to chap. TX draw support from a people growing every day ' more and more warlike, he gained a complete dominion. If, after the catastrophe of Sinope, his colleagues had persevered in their attempt to re- sist him, he would have been able to overthrow them with ease upon the meeting of Parliament. Therefore, in the transactions which brought on the war, Lord Palmerston was not drifting; he was joyfully laying his course. Whither he meant to go, thither he went ; whither he chose that others should tend, thither they bent their reluctant way. If some immortal were to offer the surviving members of Loi'd Aberdeen's Gov- ernment the privilege of retracing their steps with all the light of experience, every one of them per- haps, with only a single exception, would examine the official papers of 1853, in order to see where he could most wisely diverge from the course which the Cabinet took. Lord Palmerston would do nothing of the kind. What he had done be- fore he would do again. Lord Palmerston's plan of masking the warlike nis way of tendency of the Government was an application tendency of / . . 1-11 ^'"^ Govem- to politics of an ingenious contrivance which the mcnt. Parisians u.sed to employ in some of their street engagements with the soldiery. The contrivance was called a 'live l)avricade.' A body of the in- surgents would seize the mayor of the arrondisse- ment, and a priest (if they could get one), and also one or two respectable bankers devoted to the cause of peace and order. These prisoners, each