made it by no means an easy task for the government to hold their own, with Lord John Russell in office, and the question of the negotiations still unsettled.

The financial statement of Sir George Cornewall Lewis had been received with little or no opposition, and the budget was passed with alacrity, though it necessarily had to provide for an enormously increased expenditure.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis was just the kind of man whom the administrative reformers had asserted should hold office. He belonged to a family who had adopted politics as a business, and he had very considerable faculties for pursuing that business successfully. Probably the witty saying attributed to him, that "life would be tolerable if it were not for its amusements," was only one of the many humorous remarks for which this shrewd and able gentleman was famous among his friends. It might stand, however, as an expression of his capacity and liking for hard work and constant occupation in the business of the state. He had left the editorial chair of the Edinburgh Review to become chancellor of the exchequer, and had long been known to fame as a philosophical writer, his first important literary production having been a translation of Müller's History and Antiquities of the Doric Race. Another book, the Inquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History, was of more importance in establishing his fame as an author, however; while in the field of political writing he had published an essay, On the Use and Abuse of Political Terms, a treatise on the Method of Reasoning in Politics, and one on the Government of Dependencies. These were rather painstaking and conclusive, than brilliant or very original efforts, but they displayed great liberality and just the kind of ability that might be expected of a man who, from a comparatively early age, followed his father in a career of practical, and one might also say, professional politics. The name of Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis was well known as the holder of the by no means popular office of chairman of the poor-law commission from 1834 to 1839; and his son became a member

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of the board while he occupied that position. But Sir Frankland Lewis had achieved distinction before the latter date by a long course of public service. Belonging to a Radnorshire family of independent means, he had obtained a baronetcy from Sir Robert Peel, and had sat in parliament successively for Beaumaris, Ennis, and Radnorshire. His chief business, however, was on "commissions," and for about twenty years there was scarcely ever a parliamentary "inquiry" in which he did not take a part. In 1827 he was secretary to the treasury, then became vice-president of the Board of Trade, and then gained the lucrative post of treasurer to the navy, an office long ago abolished. Thus his son, Sir George, was trained to political life and had begun it early. In 1828, when he was twentytwo years old, he was already distinguished at Oxford, and three years later was called to the bar, with a view, as it seemed, to secure the "seven years' legal standing" which was at one time, and is often still, regarded as an advantage to anyone seeking official position. In 1835 he began with the commission of relief of the poor in Ireland, and afterwards was on the Irish Church inquiry commission. From 1836 to 1847 he was on the poor-law board, and just before the defeat of Lord John Russell in 1850 had been joint secretary to the treasury. In 1851 he had lost his seat for Herefordshire, and it was in 1854 that his father's death left him at once the baronetcy and the representation of the Radnor district in parliament. His ability as chancellor of the exchequer was acknowledged by competent judges to be superior to that either of Sir Charles Wood or of Mr. Goulbourn; but he was far inferior to Mr. Disraeli in brilliant and incisive statement, and to Mr. Gladstone both in grasp of financial policy and in the power to make the usually dry details of a budget attractive. Still his fiscal arrangements were sound, and though a number of members did not stay to listen to the whole of the budget speech, that speech was not without real interest. The condition of the country was such that the necessity for procuring revenue left little choice to a practical and careful financier. It had become impossible to con

tinue the method employed by Mr. Gladstone to meet the expenses of the war out of annual revenue. Although the estimated income for the year was close upon 63 millions, the expenditure exceeded that sum by nearly 23 millions.

On the 20th of April Sir George explained that he proposed to meet the deficiency by raising sixteen millions on loan at three per cent., of which the whole had been taken at par by the Messrs. Rothschild and the Bank of England,-five millions by means of an additional twopence in the pound on the income-tax, and three millions by exchequer bills. Some of the details of his plan provoked discussion, but the resolutions for giving it effect were carried on the 23d without difficulty. The nation was thoroughly in earnest, and to achieve the objects of the war, it was prepared to find the necessary sinews without a murmur.

The progress of the war began now to be accompanied by some events which were fortunate for the ministry, inasmuch as they tended to raise public confidence. Of the resignation of General Canrobert we have already spoken. He felt his own want of the grasp and risk of responsibility which are requisite in a commander-in-chief. An admirable soldier, thoroughly in earnest, and loyally attached to the English, he differed from his successor Pelissier in many important respects. Marshal Vaillant had said, "Pelissier will lose 14,000 men for a great result at once, while Canrobert would lose the like number by driblets without obtaining any advantage." Canrobert had hesitated to seize and fortify the Mamelon hill, a piece of neglect which afterwards cost hundreds of lives and delayed the progress of the siege, and he waited to be attacked instead of leading the assault. Pelissier was another kind of commander. eral Changarnier had said of him, "If there was an émeute I should not hesitate at burning a quarter of Paris; Pelissier would not flinch from burning the whole." To him Canrobert had, with noble self-depreciation, handed over the army, active, well organized, and ready for hard duty, and asked that he himself might be permitted to serve as a general of division.

Gen

The visit of the Emperor and Empress of the French to the Queen had done much to maintain enthusiasm in favour of that alliance which Mr. Bright had so unmistakably disparaged, and, as we have seen, the arrival not only of Russian prisoners, but of our own maimed and wounded soldiers, had not tended to diminish the belligerent temper of the nation. The distribution of Crimean medals to the officers and soldiers who had been engaged in the battles of the Alma, Balaklava, and Inkerman, was another occasion which, while it touched the sympathy of the country, at the same time increased the determination to pursue the war until the pride of Russia was humbled, and peace could be made on a basis which it was imagined would prevent her from again attempting to control the destinies of Turkey. The war-fever was not allayed by the terrible sacrifices which had been made, nor by the deluge of blood that had been shed. If our troops had suffered much, and their numbers had been reduced by famine and sword, the Russians had suffered far more. "The loss and destruction and misery inflicted on the Russians have been threefold that inflicted on the whole armies of the allies," said Lord Lansdowne in reply to the Earl of Ellenborough's charge against the administration. "The noble earl has some idea, perhaps, of the extent to which that loss has gone, that, if our troops have suffered from want of clothing, of habitations, of the means of transport, the Russians have suffered ten times more; but I should astonish your lordships by stating what the amount of that loss to the enemy has been. I have here a statement, made on the very highest authority, and from this it appears that a few days before the death of the Emperor Nicholas a return was made up, stating that 170,000 Russians had died, and according to a supplementary return, made up a few days later, 70,000 were added to the list, making a total loss of 240,000 men." It is true that the thought of this dreadful destruction of human life sent a thrill through the house, and that the arrival of detachment after detachment of invalids, who were visited by the queen and the prince consort, kept alive public pity. As Mr. Bright had said, the beating of

found that four Russian war-steamers, which had escaped from Kertch, had been run ashore and burned to the water's edge at Berdiansk. Here many vessels and extensive corn stores were taken and destroyed. At Genitchi four days later the expedition also burned many corn stores and vessels laden with corn, and these injuries were inflicted without loss of life and with scarcely a casualty.

The stores destroyed at Kertch and in the Sea of Azoff were alone computed to be equal to the rations of 100,000 men for four months, and it was now apparent that the available forces of the Russians were by no means so numerous as had been represented, otherwise they would never have allowed so formidable a blow to be struck without some show of resistance. This conclusion was confirmed by an intercepted letter from Prince Gortschakoff, from which it appeared that General Wrangel, who commanded the troops in the peninsula of Yenikale, and had repeatedly asked for reinforcements in anticipation of an attack by the allied forces, had been told in reply that none could be sent. It was viewed by the English troops as a good omen that the successful descent upon Kertch was made on the queen's birthday, the 24th of May. It had, indeed, struck the enemy in his weakest point -his supplies of food and the means of transport—and the results were not long in making themselves felt.

A success of equal or more than equal importance before Sebastopol made the taking of Kertch still more significant. We have seen that Canrobert, who had hesitated to take the Mamelon, had resigned the command to Pelissier, and petitioned to be made a general of division. He was, however, placed in command of the first corps of the army. Pelissier soon set to work in his usual persistent manner, and at the same time reinforcements began to arrive, which brought the French force up to 120,000, and the English to its former number of 30,000, while the Sardinian contingent of 15,000 and the Turkish contingent made a total of above 200,000 effective men, an army, as it was believed, amply sufficient to carry on the siege and protect the men in the trenches. Now that the transport of rein

forcements and supplies was provided for the allied troops, and the Russians in Sebastopol had increasing difficulties in conveying their stores for long distances by land carriage and marching their men over great tracts of country, it was felt that the contest, however prolonged, would end in our favour. But it was necessary to take prompt and active measures, and on the 9th of June the French and English artillery commenced a tremendous bombardment of the town, to which the Russians replied with scarcely less vigour. Our cannonade, however, was intended to cover a simultaneous attack against the three important defences of the Russians, the Sapone or White Redoubts, the Mamelon, and the Quarries which lay between the British position and the Redan. The assaults on the two former were made by the French, that on the latter by the British, while the Turks were left to defend the positions from which the allied forces had withdrawn. The three points of attack were separated from each other by two ravines, which served as shelters for the British and French reserves. The Quarries, the assault against which had been assigned to our men, had been converted by the Russians into rifle-pits, and formed a kind of outwork to the Redan, so that it was necessary to capture them before that fort could be attacked. On our troops arriving there they found that the Quarries were undefended, and therefore immediately took possession of them, and converted them into a sheltered position from which to carry on the attack on the fortress. About a thousand of our troops were able to hold them against the repeated efforts of five thousand of the enemy to retake them, for the parapets were reversed, and the fire from our batteries so kept the Russians in check that some of our officers actually made their way into the Redan itself, and afterwards declared that had the English general known of its condition and given the order, it might easily have been taken, and the siege would have been considerably shortened. General Bosquet commanded the French attack on the Mamelon, and it was taken in brilliant fashion by the Zouaves, who clambered up the hill like cats, and carried battery after battery at the