THE DEMEANOUR OF ENGLAND. 279 from his severe illness as well as ho has CHAP. done.'(^8) IX. The Duke of Newcastle was pained by the firmness with which Lord Eaglan persisted in supporting his Staff officers against the attacks of the Queen's Government ; and — at the risk of his words being construed into something like an avowal of ugly motives — he acknowledged that he felt ' great concern at the unequivocal ' terms in which the Commander had expressed ' his entire approval of the Quartermaster- ' General's Department.' Such a sentence, if hastily read, might seem to import that its writer was undergoing vexation because the chief would not shelter himself by sacrificing his Quartermaster-General ; but Lord Eaglan, I suppose, thought it courteous to avoid putting such a construction upon words which, if taken quite literally, were innocent, though, of course, very odd ; and his reply to the Duke was this :
- I cannot conceive why you should feel this
' concern. I should have thought that you ' would have been happy to learn from the ' man best qualified to give a just opinion, and ' to form a correct judgment, that I was ably
- assisted by Major-General Airey, and perfectly
' satisfied with the manner in which he con- ' ducted his duties under my directions.'(^^) By Lord Eaglan's determined resistance, the Ministers TIT- • • 1 1 f 1 • • • Imlkedln Mmisterial plan of choosmg victims from out of their en- . ri fvt o 1 deiivoui- to his Headquarter Stan was for the moment de- -sacrifice feated ; and some of the members of the Govern- lan's stair . ofiicers ; meut now lapsed into a notion that, because the
