THE DEMEANOUE OF ENGLAND. 253 ' war under the existing management. If Gov- C h a p. TX ' ernment, if the House of Commons, or the " British public choose to sell themselves to the
- Aristocracy, and, through the Aristocracy, to
' their enemies, it is their own affair ; we wipe ' our hands of the national suicide. All that we its protest . - , against the ' can do is to protest and to warn, and that we further pro- secution of
- Will not cease to do, though hitherto we have theenter-
TT 1 1 • • prise. ' done so in vain. Under the existing manage-
- ment, we repeat, we have no choice left but to
' protest against the further prosecution of an ' enterprise which leads to nothing but ruin and ' disgrace.'(^^) The great journal, ' inspiring our people whilst Failure ot ' itself by our people inspired,' had advised, had our to stop enjoined, had ordained the attack on Sebastopol, tionofthe doing this with the strength of a torrent that bore down all the obstructors."^'" And, if the campaign were a drama evolving itself with con- sistency, the power that thus could bind would prove also the power to loose ; so that now a countermandate, delivered by the voice which had sent out our troops would withdraw them at once from the strife, and bring them home to a country so tractable, or else so faint-hearted, as to show itself cured of war-fever by the disci- pline of Commissariat troubles. But happily for the warlike repute of Eng- land, there was no such dramatic consistency in
- See ante, the fourteenth chapter of vol. ii., Cabinet Edi-
tion, in which I have laid much stress upon this. Except amongst those who remember the year 1854, there will be always, I imagine, some difficulty in conceiving the real height of the ascendant then enjoyed by the 'Times.'
