of Secretary at War.
He considered that the latter appointment should be held in connection
with the finances of the Army, and in independence of the Secretary for
the War Department. Lord John replied that 'either the Prime Minister
must himself be the acting and moving spirit of the whole machine, or
else the Secretary for War must have delegated authority to control
other departments,' and added, 'neither is the case under the present
_regime_.' Once more, nothing came of the protest, and, when Parliament
met on December 12, to indulge in the luxury of dull debates and bitter
personalities, the situation remained unchanged, in spite of the growing
sense of disaster abroad and incapacity at home. The Duke of Newcastle
in the Lords made a lame defence, and his monotonous and inconclusive
speech lasted for the space of three hours. 'The House went to sleep
after the first half hour,' was the cynical comment of an Opposition
peer. As the year ended the indignation in the country against the Duke
of Newcastle grew more and more pronounced, and he, in common with Lord
Aberdeen, was thought in many quarters to be starving the war. The truth
was, the Duke was not strong enough for the position, and if he had gone
to the Colonial Office, when that alternative was offered him, his
reputation would not now be associated with the lamentable blunders
which, rightly or wrongly, are laid to his charge. It is said that he
once boasted that he had often kept out of mischief men who, he frankly
admitted, were his superiors in ability. However that may be, the Duke
of Newcastle ignominiously failed, at the great crisis in his public
career, to keep out of mischief men who were his subordinates in
position, and, in consequence, to arrest the fatal confusion which the
winter campaign made on the military resources of the nation. Lord
Hardinge, who on the death of the Duke of Wellington had succeeded to
the post of Commander-in-Chief, assured Lord Malmesbury in January 1855
that the Duke of Newcastle had never consulted him on any subject
connected with the war. He added, with considerable heat, that not a
single despatch had been submitted to him; in fact, he had been left to
gather what the War Minister was doing through the published statements
in the newspapers.

The Duke of Newcastle was a sensible, well-intentioned man, but allowed
himself to be involved in the management of the details of his office,
instead of originating a policy