These remarks must be understood as applying more to the public in general, whose political speculations are necessarily confined pretty nearly within the limits of what is brought from day to day within their field of intellectual vision, than to statesmen and diplomatists, who are not only compelled by their position to take a wider view of the aspect of the political horizon, but whose peculiar sources of information give them an insight into matters which are beyond the sphere of the periodical purveyors to the public curiosity. To men of this class it had indeed been long apparent that the next serious disturbance of the European equilibrium would, in all human probability, arise from inevitable complications in the East. The hereditary pretensions of Russia in that quarter were not unfamiliar to their minds, and they were well aware that the specious tranquillity, so long enjoyed, was due at least as much to the self-denial and guardedness of the other European Powers, as to the moderation of the Muscovite.
It was under the influence of these considerations that the French Alliance was prepared and cemented, and that the Emperor Napoleon III., forgetful of the bitter attacks to which, since the period of the coup d''etat, he had been constantly exposed on the part of the English Press, and mindful only of his own exalted mission, inaugurated that policy of upright and cordial co-operation with this country, which will ever entitle him to the respect of all true Englishmen. His rapid and almost instinctive appreciation of the true position of affairs taught him the immense importance of such a combination; and, in the wisest and most laudable spirit of self-abnegation, he waived those claims of France upon the Sublime Porte which might have introduced an embarrassing complication into the already intricate question of the East; and thus brought into the scale of progress and civilisation the concentrated energy of that magnificent people, whose prescient choice he has so amply justified in every action of his prosperous reign.
If, as it is scarcely possible to deny, the actual breaking out of the War seized by surprise even those charged with the supreme management of affairs, and who should have been best qualified to judge of the final probabilities of a rupture, it must be remembered that it was difliicult for men trained, by forty years of peace, in the knowledge of how much Diplomacy could effect, to realise that her powers would be so soon exhausted, and no resource left but an appeal to arms.
Certain it is that a long time elapsed ere this conviction could be brought home to the bulk of the English people, and even after decisive steps, of whose import it was difiicult to doubt, had been taken, there was f N THE CRIMEA.
a general unwillingness to believe that the scabbard was on the eve of being thrown aside, and that the nation was on the brink of a war of colossal proportions, and of a duration which the profoundest vatic skill would hesitate to determine.
This sentiment was in some measure neutralised by another, which was the deep feeling and the profound sympathy with which the departure of our first armaments from these shores was regarded, whilst their destination was still uncertain, and their return with unstained swords still a matter within the range of probability. There seemed to be a prophetic element in the deep fervour of that farewell which England breathed in a spirit of prayer to the noblest of her sons, as they left her parent bosom, to which, alas! so many were never to return.
The 22d of February is eventful as the day on which the first portion of our Army left these shores to take a part in the coming War. At an early hour in the morning Southampton presented an unusual scene of excitement. At half-past eight o'clock the First Battalion of the Coldstream Guards marched in from Chichester, and at once embarked in the Orinoco. Soon after ten o'clock the Third Battalion of Grenadiers, who had come from London by train, marched down to the docks, and were put on board the Ripon and Manilla.
For some time the three ships lay motionless, but at two ©'(dock a thin wreath of smoke from the little Manilla recalled the reality of the scene, as she leisurely steamed out of the docks. The Ripon was not long in following, and at five the Orinoco got under weigh, having on board Generals Bentinck and Eyre.
Nobody who was at Southampton on that morning is likely to forget the scene. Perhaps the departure of no troops could have excited the same depth of feeling as that of the Guards.