refrain from pouring on him those vials of wrath to which his
office exposed him in the eyes especially of the uninformed. The duties
of his department were really financial. I suppose it to be doubtful
whether it was not the duty of the secretary of state's department to
deal with the question of supply for the army, leaving to him only the
management of the purchasing part. But I conceive it could be subject to
no doubt at all that it was the duty of the administrative department of
the army on the spot to anticipate and make known their wants for the
coming winter. This, if my memory serves me, they wholly failed to do:
and, the Duke of Newcastle's staff being in truth very little competent,
Herbert strained himself morning, noon, and night to invent wants for
the army, and according to his best judgment or conjecture to supply
them. So was laden the great steamer which went to the bottom in the
harbour of Balaclava. And so came Herbert to be abused for his good
deeds.--_Autobiographic Note_, Sept. 17, 1897.

THE CRIMEAN WAR

_Page 546_

_Mr. Gladstone to Duke of Argyll_

_Oct._ 18, '55.--You have conferred a great obligation on me by putting
me into the witness-box, and asking me why I thought last year that we
were under an obligation to Lord Palmerston for 'concentrating the
attention of the cabinet on the expedition to the Crimea.' Such was
_then_ my feeling, entertained so strongly that I even wrote to him for
the purpose of giving to it the most direct expression. And such is my
feeling _still_. I think the fall of Sebastopol, viewed in itself and
apart from the mode in which it has been brought about, a great benefit
to Europe.... This benefit I should have contemplated with high and, so
to speak, unmixed satisfaction, were I well assured as to the means by
which we had achieved it. But, of course, there is a great difference
between a war which I felt, however grievous it was, yet to be just and
needful, and a war carried on without any adequate justification; so far
as I can to this hour tell, without even any well-defined practical
object.... Your letter (if I must now pass from the defensive) seems to
me to involve assumptions as to our right to rectify the distribution of
political power by bloodshed, which carry it far beyond just bounds. In
the hour of success doctrines and policy are applauded, or pass
unquestioned