Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/105

CHAP. IV.

The assembled admiral and captains received chap. the proposal of Koniilolf in blank silence; its reception by the council. and it presently appeared that, although there were some few who assented to the proposal, the rest disapproved it, and were already bending their- thoughts to a measure of a very different kind. All probably knew beforehand that this other measure was to be proposed, and that it had the sanction of Prince Mentschikoff, the Commander-in-Chief.

The period of Koiniloff's great ascendancy was close at hand, but it had not yet come; and, great as we shall see him to be in the days which were approaching, it may be acknowledged that, whatever good there might be in his desperate plan of attack, if peremptorily ordered and fiercely pushed through to the end by a resolute commander, it was hardly one which could be usefully submitted to a numerous assembly of admirals and captains who knew that it was disapproved by the Commander-in-Chief. And the reasonings by which Korniloff tried to support his proposal were surely weak. Because the Allied fleets kept no formal array, they were not therefore in confusion. There was always, at the least, one vessel of war standing sentry over the prisoned fleet of the Russians; and the ships of the Allies, though somewhat dispersed, were well enough linked by signals and by their great steam-power. Even before the landing, when an irruption into the midst of the crowded and busy armada could have been best attempted, the seamen of Dundas's