THE DEMEAJSrOUE OF ENGLAND. 261 the public service, that they could and would stop chap the transaction of all other landing and trans- port operations, and so give him at once what he wanted. The disappointment of those very English, though of course disorderly wishes, found an echo at home, not only in private life and in newspapers, but even, one may say, in our War Department ; for the Duke of Newcastle adopted the complaint of a remonstrant who came to let him know that at times, when a cargo of clothes and ammunition was lying on board a ship in the harbour of Balaclava, there was * nobody who thought it his duty to order ' its immediate discharge.' (^^) One angry relative of an officer, who had ap- parently pitied himself for his privations came and turned the mischief into a set grievance by saying that it must have resulted from the omis- sions of a staff potentate who yet had found time to 'write [to] more than six fine ladies;' and to even such kitchen-lore as that the Min- ister now could listen ! (^^) In the prosperous days, our War Minister liad been left to work on with but little moles- tation or help ; but the other chief members of the Government were by this time alarmed, and when the harassed Duke crossed Whitehall to attend a Cabinet, he there found little less peace than in the outer world, for his colleagues now always assailed him, complaining that ' more had ' not been done ' to avert the calamity, and insisting that ' something must be done.' To return to the War Office was to find perhaps
