Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/439

APPENDIX. 409 the peculiar wording of a despatcl). ]Jut why was it that a despatch so worded received the approval or the tacit as- sent of a Cabinet? It would be unfaithful for me to stop sliort at that point in the chain of causation unless I were brought to a stop by the want of knowledge, or by the want of a right to disclose what I know. It so happens, how- ever, that neither of these excuses is available to me. I know the truth, and I learnt it under circumstances which gave me a full right to disclose it. — End of Note to d Edition, It is now, I believe, declared that, before the opening of the momentous Despatch, some long tiresome papers on other matters were read out to the Cabinet, and that the sound thus produced was the real narcotic. — Note to 4th Edition). The Despatch of the 29th of June 1854 was no ordinary document. It directed the venturesome invasion of a Kussian province in language evincing an unusually bold assumption of responsibility on the part of the Guvernnient, and besides, had the literary merit of being extremely Avell penned. The writer of such a State mandate might fairly expect that some one or more of his colleagues would be startled at the wording of a Despatch which went so far in the exercise of authority as to leave barely any discretion to the commander of our distant army ; and on the other hand, it would have been natural for him to imagine be- forehand that the mere composition of this historic paper, upon which great issues depended, must needs provoke a few words of praise from the men who were to have it read out to them. To expect a reception of that keenly critical, yet laudatory, kind, and to find instead that his words were sending the hearers to sleep — this might Avell disappoint any author ; and accordingly, in describing the scene at Pembroke Lodge, the Duke of Newcastle used to speak in a way which showed, as T thought, that he had been personally vexed by the torpor of his colleagues.