The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-02 00:00:00

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MEM

• v,

818

and repels disease. Look to the horrors re-
sulting from inaction. The leading supporter
of the Coalition has, in its publication of
yesterday, published a letter which describes
the state of the expedition. The Guards arp
represented as so jaded end heatt-sickenei
that they had to make two marches to accom-
plish ten miles, and to hoe their knapsacks
carried for them ! They left Old England
panting for glory, sin& Of have been kvpt two
months out of the view of the enemy. Devno,
called by the Turks " The Valley of Death,"
was selected for their recent quarters. The
drivers and men of the Ambulance Corps have
all died, and, where men of physical energy
should have been chosen, it appears that they
were selected from worn-out soldiers, too old '
for campaigning. We shall not sicken our
readers with the reproduction of some of the
detailed horrors of the " Cholera Camp." It
is enough to say that the great French artist,
HORACE VERNET, has asserted that already the
horrors of the expedition have exceeded any-
thing that his pencil could portray. The
calamities of Walcheren are surpassed, and
only the same pen that described the plague
in London could paint the moral anguish and
physical sufferings of our army that had the
dire misfortune of languishing under the coun-
sels of a Cabinet which begun the war in insin-
cerity, conducted it witli inactivity, and would
seem not to care even if its final results were
inglorious to the English name.
But such a policy cannot be pursued with
impunity. Grave political consequences re-
sulted from the disastrous Walcheren expe-
dition. Statesmen concerned in concocting
it, or in acquiescing in its organisation,
vainly attempted to fly from the consequences
of their own personal responsibility. Mr.
CANNING, to no avail, endeavoured to evade
the responsibility which he had incurred; and
the disputed leadership of the Commons with
Lord CASTLEREAGH, and the intestine discord of
the Tory Cabinet of the Regency, were directly
attributable to the unfortunate expedition to
the Scheldt.
In the present case there will be a repetition
of parallel consequences. Already the actual
horrors of the expedition exceed those of
Walcheren, and the questions necessarily
arise, what if the Cabinet are really responsi-
ble for the delays that have taken place? Is
It Lord ABERDEEN, with a new " secret under-
standing," or some more clandestine papers,
divulged only to one or two of the Cabinet?
Is it the Minister of War with his clerkly
intellect that affects the capacious, confound-
ing the plodding diligence of a mediocre red-
tapist with the predominating spirit that in-
spires master natures ? Some one must be
censured for the unparalleled fact of the expe-
dition that left our shores last spring being
left up to autumn to pine in miserable torpor.
Some one must answer for the dire conse-
quences of such imbecile tampering with the
public interests of Europe. An army must,
not thus be imperilled with impunity, and the
ensign of England must be rescued from the
palsied fingers and anile mind that would
fling it as a peace-offering to the Czar to he
exhibited as a trophy at the Kremlin.
Nor let it be said, as an excuse, that the
Cabinet is not accountable for the cholera.
We charge upon it the responsibility that by
its wavering and weakness--its ambiguous
counsels and insincere speeches—its tortuous
diplomacy and mysterious purposes—it has
bewildered our public servants, and assisted
our national enemies. Crowd men together,
tell them that on one hand is the enemy, and
on the other is a plague, but that diplomacy
and the " spirit of peace " forbid their assault
on the former, and what must be the conse-
quence ? Just such as all the journals record
in their dismally black catalogues of calami-
ties in a plague-tainted army. Two months
ago the sight of Sebastopol would have been
a tonic to the energies of our men, even then
kept too long in inaction, and now we have
only a month before us for the performance
of any important undertaking. September
has arrived. Warm days and cold nights will
now try the debilitated energies of our troops,
and the army will have to fight, if it fight at
all, crippled in its strength, and weakened in
its numbers.