The uttermost efforts were made by the Allies to remove the stores and materiel accumulated on the plateau, and to embark the troops for their different destinations, but so vast was the mass of warlike necessaries, and so large the force congregated in the Crimea, that it was not till July they had so far succeeded as to be able to name a day for the formal cession of the last position held by them on Russian soil. On the 12th of July the 50th Regiment furnished a rear-guard which was posted outside Balaklava to await the Russian officer who was to take over charge of the town. He came across the plain with 50 Cossacks, and the two parties saluted and then returned to the town, where the Russians posted their sentries, and the English troops embarked on board H.M.S. Algiers. The General in command of the British forces, Sir "W. Codrington, and his staff left the Crimea at the same time. During the expedition the English lost — killed in action and died of wounds, 3,500; died of cholera, 4,244; of other diseases nearly 16,000;— total (including 270 officers), 24,000; 2,873 officers and men were disabled. The French loss was estimated at 03,500 men, killed in action or died in camps. The loss of the Russians was estimated as high as 500,000. The war added to the National Debt £41,041,000.
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In times to come this Cathcart's Hill will be a chosen terminus of Saxon pilgrimage. Whether the traveller beholds from its humble parapet the fair aspect of the Imperial city, guarded by threefold mightier batteries than before, or sits upon the Cemetery wall to gaze upon the ruins of Sebastopol, he must, if he has any British blood in his veins, regard with emotion that little spot which encloses all that was mortal of some of the noblest soldiers that ever sprang from our warrior race. He will see the site of those tedious trenches where the strong man waxed weak day after day, and the sanguine became hopeless, and where the British soldier fought through a terrible winter with privation, cold, frost, snow, and rain, more terrible and deadly than the fire of the enemy. With the Redan, the MalakofF, the Quarries, the Mamelon, Gordon's Attack, Chapman's Attack, under his eyes, he will revive with the aspect of the places where they stood the memories of this great struggle, and in his mind the incidents of its history will be renewed.