when the time appointed for them by Divine Providence happens to arrive. Instead of moaning or grumbling over her experience of this inevitable circumstance of mortal condition, it is for her to look forward with eyes at length fully opened to realities, and with her mind at length sobered down to a truer and juster estimate of the difficulties before and around her, and of the powers and capabilities of other nations. And severe as have been, not the mere disappointments of an exorbitant self-estimation, but the real and practical sacrifices and losses which the struggle in the Crimea has entailed upon her; there can, after all, be little doubt of her ultimate success if she be but true to herself, and not even for a moment yield to the depressing influences of this war's history in its first brief but most bloody page.

One lesson, and an obvious one, has already been taken. The mistake has been at length recognized and declared, of having allowed the military establishments of the Empire to be so reduced during the long and piping times of peace. The expenditure consequent on the maintenance of, let us say, an armed force even so large as to be double that which Great Britain has kept on foot during the last ten years, would yet have fallen short in the aggregate of what she has had to pay since the commencement of the war, for new and hasty levies, untried, undisciplined, and unseasoned, and for hasty enlargements of her transport system, her commissariat system, and all the other means and appliances and requisites of war on a great scale. And it has been wisely determined that no such blunder shall be made again, and that, be the war long, or be the war short, the military force of the country shall never again be permitted to fall so low as it was found to be on the outbreak of the present hostilities.

Besides this great blunder of principle, there were many blunders of detail, some large, some less so, but all of impor tance and heavy moment, which are likely to be, or at this present time are actually in progress of being corrected. The Parliamentary "Blue Book" to which we invite attention, the first among the texts set forth in the short preliminary index to the contents of this paper, affords ample means and opportunity of estimating the necessity, and in the various cases, almost the degree of required correction.

The "Blue Book" in question, the "Report of the Army before Sebastopol" Committee, as it has been succinctly

entitled in the Parliamentary Offices, needed assuredly no such phrases d'usage to prelude its revelations as those contained in its opening paragraphs. The public were quite and most fully aware of the difficulties in the way of the enquiry-the complication and variety of subjects-number and discrepan cies of witnesses-deficiency of means of information on many points, and restricting effect of" considerations of State-Policy."

However, the delay of entering "in medias res" is so trifling as to be scarcely worth remark. The main subject is very speedily entered upon, under the division of two heads, viz: first, "the Condition of the Army before Sebastopol," and secondly "the Conduct of the Departments both at home and abroad whose duty it has been to minister to the wants of that Army."

The first of these heads is so briefly dispatched that we can afford space to quote in extenso the remarks of the Committee thereupon:

I.

"The Condition of our Army before Sebastopol.

"An army encamped in a hostile country, at a distance of 3,000 miles from England, and engaged during a severe winter in besieging a fortress which, from want of numbers, it could not invest, was necessarily placed in a situation where unremitting fatigue and hardship had to be endured. Your committee are, however, of opinion that this amount of unavoidable suffering has been aggravated by causes hereafter enumerated, and which are mainly to be attributed to dilatory and insufficient arrangements for the supply of this army with necessaries indispensable to its healthy and effective condition. In arriving at this opinion they have made allowance for the unexpected severity of the storm on the 16th of November, and they have not been unmindful of the difficulties which a long period of peace must inevitably produce at the commencement of a campaign. In order to obtain an adequate notion of the painful condition of the army the evidence must be perused; and your committee will only refer to such details as may be requisite to sustain their opin

ions.

From the 16th of September, when the army landed in the Crimea, until the end of October, or, as witnesses state, until about the middle of November, the troops suffered from overwork and from dysentery, but were not, upon the whole, ill-provided with food. Even at this period there was a want of clothing for the men in health, and a painful deficiency of all appliances for the proper treatment of the sick and wounded. As the season advanced the causes of sickness increased, and the army, with its number of effective men daily diminishing, became more and more disproportioned to the amount of duty which it had to perform.

From the middle of November, this army was, during a period of

many weeks, reduced to a condition which it is melancholy to contem plate, but which was endured both by officers and men with a fortitude and heroism unsurpassed in the annals of war. They were exposed under single canvas to all the sufferings and inconveniences of cold, rain, mud, and snow, on high ground and in the depth of winter. They suffered from overwork, exposure, want of clothing, insufficient supplies for the healthy, and imperfect accommodation for the sick. The fatigue necessarily resulted from the inadequacy of the force for the task assigned to it. The British army was a portion of an allied force. The whole scheme of the siege, the extent at front to be defended, the positions to be maintained, and the works to be undertaken, depended on military considerations, and were decided upon in conjunction with our allies. Your committee regard these matters as beyond the limits of their inquiry."

Why was there a want of clothing for the men in health during the early and lighter period here spoken of, viz: from the landing of the Allied Expedition in the Crimea on the 16th of September, until the middle of November? why was there also during that period a "painful deficiency of all appliances for the proper treatment of the sick and wounded."

These are momentous questions, as indeed are all the questions having reference to the terrible drama being enacted in the Crimea for the last ten months. The Report proceeds to answer them in somewhat of a roundabout fashion, by a kind of general history, or review of the Crimean Expedition itself, mixed up with statements of the constitution and powers of the governmental departments at home and in the East, upon which the responsibility rested of making adequate arrangements for the vigorous and successful prosecution of that Expedition, care of the Soldiery, &c., and after a good deal of particular censure and comment, the Report ends with laying the whole blame upon the Aberdeen administration, which they specially accuse of want of information on most necessary points, want of the most ordinary foresight, and consequent want of preparation for the needs and requirements of the Army.

Whatever may have been the shortcomings and blunderings of the Administration of Lord Aberdeen, it is hardly fair to seek to throw, as the Report of the "Sebastopol" Committee evidently labours to do, all the blame of deficiency of adequate military preparation for the war, upon that administration. In truth, the blame ought not to be thrown upon any particular set of ministers and scarcely upon any cabinet whatever. It more rightfully should fall upon those who really, though not

immediately, or directly, influence and give direction to Public affairs in England-the middle classes of that country. It was from them that the cry and that the impulse, the prevailing impulse has proceeded, ever since the last sounds of the French war died upon their ears, to have the military establishments of the United Kingdom cut down, and it is therefore as against them, that the following paragraphs of the "Sebastopol" Committee's Report should be taken to be directed:

"At the date of the expedition to the East no reserve was provided at home adequate to the undertaking. Mr. Sydney_Herbert states, in his memorandum of the 27th November, The army in the East has been created by discounting the future. Every regiment at home, or within reach, and not forming part of that army, has been robbed to complete it. The depots of battalions under Lord Raglan have been similarly treated.'

The men sent out to reinforce the army were recruits who had not become fit for foreign service, and the depots at home were too weak to feed the companies abroad.

The order to attack Sebastopol was sent to Lord Raglan on the 29th of June; the formation of a reserve at Malta was not determined upon till early in November.

It will be seen from the correspondence between Lord John Russell and Lord Aberdeen, that Lord Raglan had reported that he wished he had been able to place in the position of Balaklava, on the 26th of October, a more considerable force,' and also, that on the 5th of November the heights of Inkerman were defended by no more than 8,000 British Infantry. When the Duke of Newcastle informed Lord Raglan that he had 2,000 recruits to send to him, he replied that, those last sent were so young and unformed, that they fell victims to disease, and were swept away like flies. He preferred to wait.'

In December the power of reinforcing the army with efficient soldiers was so reduced that the Government thought it necessary to introduce a Foreign Enlistment Bill for the purpose of raising a foreign legion.

Your committee must express their regret that the formation of a large reserve at home, and also in the promixity of the seat of war, was not considered at a much earlier period, and that the Government, well knowing the limited numbers of the British army, the nature of the climate in the East, as well as the Power we were about to encounter, did not at the commencement of the war take means to augment the ranks of the army beyond the ordinary recruiting, and also that earlier steps were not taken to render the militia available both for the purpose of obtaining supplies of men, and also, in case of necessity, for the relief of regiments of the line stationed in garrisons in the Mediterranean measures which they found themselves compelled to adopt at a later period."

No doubt there ought to have been a larger and more effective army on foot-no doubt there ought to have been at hand a sufficient provision of trained and seasoned soldiers, instead of having had to "discount the future," nay, to discount the lives of the unhappy raw levies of whom Field Marshal Lord Raglan wrote back to the Duke of Newcastle, that they were "so young and unformed, that they fell victims to disease and were swept away like flies."

But granting these most undeniable postulates, we have one in our turn which is at least equally difficult of denial. It is simply, that any and every ministry would have found it and did find it impossible to resist the cry for a reduction of the military expenditure of the United Kingdom in all its branches. The present and immediate saving was all that was looked to, the future was left to take care of itself. War was deemed or at least said to be most problematical, if not altogether impossible in those times of advanced civilization and enlightenment. The Sovereigns of Europe had made too great a stride beyond the confines of all the old and obsolete landmarks of inter-national polity to fall back so utterly into middle-age barbarism as to go to war. In short we were near the millennium; or if we were not, it would be time enough to think of evil when it came, and at the worst there would be ample opportunity for preparation between the first lowerings on the far horizon and growlings of the distant thunder, and the final overclouding of the whole political firmament and explosion of the long gathering storm.

These and other instances and representations put forward by the advocates of the pennywise, pound-foolish policy, backed by what the first Marquess of Londonderry summarily and not altogether so infelicitously, as in many of his other flights of oratory, designated as "an ignorant impatience of taxation," had their sway and their day; and in that day scarcely one of those who now cry out loudest against the public men, be they Whig, or be they Tory, who when in office yielded to the representations in question, did himself utter one word or do one act to check and rebuke the disastrous but really inevitable pliancy. Any ministry which should have made a serious resistance to the progress of retrenchment, would have been upset and totally overwhelmed at once by the fierce current of Reform.

So strong was the coercion of this state of circumstances, that