268 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP. IX. some one to blaine. The process by which Jlinisters brought their minds to the nn. tion of fast- ing off the blame from themselves ; and throw- ing it on Lord Rag- lan's Staff officers. one to blame. The Duke of Newcastle could with truth tell his colleagues that, so far as he knew, he had not himself been guilty of any disastrous omission ; but no enquiry was made amongst the dispersed London offices with the purpose of learning whether any of them had been receiving demands from the seat of war, and if so, whether all such demands had been fully and promptly met. By crossing a single street, the Duke of Newcastle might have learnt that the default, after all, was in London ; but he gave himself no such enlightenment, and therefore both he and his colleagues were able to go on imagining that the very reverse was true. Believing, though wrongly, that there was no default in London, both the Duke and the rest of the Cabinet went on to infer that the delinquency, whatever it was, must be in the Crimea — must be at the English headquarters ; and — unwilling at first to lay blame on Lord Eaglan himself — they grasped so eagerly at the expedient of impugning his staff, as to become, what now I must call them — that is, hasty, reckless accusers. With the many and painful anecdotes we saw pouring in upon the War Minister, there were naturally interspersed loose opinions, finding fault with men in authority ; and the Duke himself at this time, as will be presently seen, was so confused in his notions of our military system as to be in a very apt state for re- ceiving the ideas of tormentors who not only came to tell him of troubles in port, and troubles
