CAN ROBERT'S DISSENT. 25 The conversion of the French at that time was, CHAP however, so far from complete that, instead of the ratification expected from their Commander-in- ^^f" Chief, there came from him to Lord Raglan a dfwctton paper so framed that, far from importing agree- tX^oy* 1 * ment, it bristled with language well fitted to pro- anro ' voke dispute and antagonism. Accompanied by a short private note which His official merely announced the sending of the other epistle, Lord this paper was in form a despatch — an official letter — from Canrobert detailing the several schemes that had been put forward, reflecting upon the different plans that had been suggested by Sir John Burgoyne, setting forth the various duties which the French army had to perform, and calling upon Lord Raglan to state specifically what he could undertake to do in a given time * Lord Raglan had ' always felt that as the Lord Rag- ' French army increased in numbers his personal of dealing ' position would become more difficult ; ' and he now at once saw that, if met in the spirit which seems to have dictated its composition, or even if fully answered at all by a despatch from him- self, this missive might prove, with its set inter- rogatories, to be the beginning of an antagonistic correspondence imperilling that thorough accord between the French and the English which, he said, it had been the object of his ' almost every 1 thought to maintain.' t
- General Canrobert to Lord Raglan, 30th December 1854.
t Lord Raglan to Secretary of State — Secret — January 2, 1855.
