CHAP. XV.
Information the Foreign Office as to the defences of the Crimea. In the matter of gaining information respecting the enemy's resources, our Foreign Office had not been idle; and a great deal of material, obtained by bearing upon this vital business, had been there received, and collated. It resulted from these data, that, spread over vast space, Russia might nominally have under arms forces approaching to a million of men; but that the force in the Crin Chersonese, including the 17,000 men who formed the crews of the ships, did not, at the highest estimate, amount to more than 45,000; and that, although there were a few battalions which Russia might draw towards Sebastopol from her army of the Caucasus, she had no more speedy method of largely reinforcing the Crimea than by availing herself of the troops then in retreat from the country of the Danube, and marching them round to Perekop, by the northern shores of the Euxine.
No information obtained in the Levant. Neither the ambassadors of France and England at Constantinople, nor any of their generals or admirals, had succeeded in obtaining for themselves any trustworthy information upon this vitally momentous business. For their failure in this respect more blame attaches upon the ambassadors than upon the military and naval commanders; because the ambassadors had been in the Levant during a period of many months, in which (since the war was impending, but not declared) they might have bought knowledge from
Russian subjects without involving their informers in the perils of treason. The duty of gather-