250 OKDEUS AND PllEPARATIOJsS CHAP, made another and a last effort to wiu attention ^^' to the contents of the draft, Lut again a bliss- ful rest (not this time actual sleep) interposed between Ministers and cares of State ; and all, even those who from the first had remained awake, were in a quiet assenting frame of mind. Upon the whole, the Despatcli, though it bristled with sentences tending to provoke objection, received from the Cabinet the kind of approval which is often awarded to an unobjectionable sermon. Nob a letter of it was altered; and it will be seen by-and-by that that cogency in the wording of the Despatch which could hardly have failed to provoke objection from an awakened Cabinet, was the very cause which governed events. instnictions The iustructions addressed from Paris to the sent to the -r-. ^ i i • i i -i • i Fruncii com- i rcuch commanuer did not urge him to propose the invasion of the Crimea, nor even to lend the weight of his opinion to the proposed enterprise ; but they forbade him from advancing towards the Danube. If it should be clear that the English were willing to undertake the expedition to the Crimea, then the Inench commander was jiot to be at liberty to hold back.*
- I (leiluco this conclusion, in an inferential way, from the
general tenor of the materials at my command, and not froiu tkny one document distinctly warranting the statement.
