teries; and
there are many other calls upon the men, more especially when, as at
present, the roads are so bad that wheeled carriages can no longer
be used, and that the horse transport is diminished by sickness and
death, and that the Commissariat, having no longer any sufficient
means of conveyance at its command, cannot bring up the daily supplies
without their assistance, thereby adding, however inevitably, to their
labour and fatigue.

Lord Raglan begs leave to submit, for your Majesty's information, that
the Allied Armies have no intercourse with the country, and can derive
no resources from it; and consequently all the requirements for
the conveyance of stores and provisions, as well as the stores and
provisions themselves, must be imported. Such a necessity forms in
itself a difficulty of vast magnitude, which has been greatly felt by
him, and has been productive of the most serious consequences to the
comfort and welfare of the Army.

The coffee sent from Constantinople has been received and issued
to the troops green, the Commissariat having no means whatever of
roasting it. Very recently, however, an able officer of the Navy,
Captain Heath of the _Sanspareil_, undertook to have machines made by
the engineers on board his ship for roasting coffee; and in this he
has succeeded, but they have not yet produced as much as is required
for the daily consumption.

The Commissary-General applied to the Treasury for roasted coffee
three months ago. None has as yet arrived. A very large amount of warm
clothing has been distributed, and your Majesty's soldiers, habited in
the cloaks of various countries, might be taken for the troops of any
nation as well as those of England.

Huts have arrived in great abundance, and as much progress is made in
getting them up as could be hoped for, considering that there has been
a very heavy fall of snow, and that a thaw has followed it, and the
extremely limited means of conveyance at command.

Much having been said, as Lord Raglan has been given to understand, in
private letters, of the inefficiency of the officers of the Staff, he
considers it to be due to your Majesty, and a simple act of justice to
those individuals, to assure your Majesty that he has every reason
to be satisfied with their exertions, their indefatigable zeal, and
undeviating, close attention to their duties, and he may be permitted
to add that the horse and mule transport for the carriage of
provisions an