CARE OF THE SICK AND WOUNDED. 377 duty, and endowed with the vigour, the firmness, chap. the good sense that were imperatively required ____. for this novel sort of undertaking. Before leav- ing England Mr Macdonald saw the Duke of Newcastle and Dr Andrew Smith (the Inspector- General), and by both of them was told that — because of the ample measures already taken by Government — a fund of the kind entrusted to him was not likely to be of any use in the relief of the sick and wounded. (^^) Upon reaching the Bosphorus, he heard language to the same effect from almost all the official people with whom he consulted ; and a less sagacious man might have come back to England reporting that the benevolent mission was vain, because fore- stalled by the measures of a Government now fully alive to its duties and knowing how to perform them. There however took place one frank confes- sion of want made known by an officer on duty, and it brought about an occurrence which be- came beyond measure conspicuous from the light — the painful light — that it threw on the com- petency of our army administration. A regi- ment — the 39th — on its way from Gibraltar to the seat of war had reached the Bosphorus, and was going on to meet the rigours of a winter in the Crimea without having been supplied with any addition to the light clothing appropriately worn in hot countries ; and the surgeon of the regiment appealed to Mr Macdonald for that direly needed supply, which ought of course to have come from our army administrators.(^^)
