DISCOURAGEMENT OF THE GARRISON. 219 and with many indeed, it would seem, that the ciiap. feeling ran into panic. According to the accounts of deserters, the soldiery in great numbers ran down to the shore of the Roadstead, and fought with their own fellow-countrymen for the boats and the rafts they there found, wildly striving to escape from Sebastopol, and gain the peaceful ' North Side.' * This despair, or approach to despair, on the part of troops well entitled to exult in their happy achievement, was not destined of course to be lasting ; but the garrison did not cease all The czar's at once to stand in grave need of encoura<mient ; graTe Seed -, , . . of encour- and perhaps a requirement so pressing may have agement; led men to frame in great haste such accounts of a glorious infantry battle as they thought would best cheer the dispirited soldiery, thus supplying material for the strange fabrication which substi- tuted mere hollow fable for the truth known to thousands, yet purported to draw its authority from the Russian Commander-in-chief.t The Russians — navy and army, engineers, artil- whence ap- lery, infantry — having all, or nearly all, done Fabrication' 6 their duty with valour and steadiness down to of June, almost the close of the action, and having repulsed every column attempting to storm the enceinte, might have well been rewarded and cheered with perfectly well-founded praise ; yet, because, when our siege-guns reopened, a part of the garrison
- Accounts of deserters. Letters from Headquarters, vol.
ii. p. 355. i See ante, chap. vii. p. 210 et sey.
