This sentiment was in some measure neutralised by another, which was the deep feeling and the profound sympathy with which the departure of our first armaments from these shores was regarded, whilst their destination was still uncertain, and their return with unstained swords still a matter within the range of probability. There seemed to be a prophetic element in the deep fervour of that farewell which England breathed in a spirit of prayer to the noblest of her sons, as they left her parent bosom, to which, alas! so many were never to return.
The 22nd of February is eventful as the day on which the first portion of our Army left these shores to take a part in the coming War. At an early hour in the morning Southampton presented an unusual scene of
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excitement. At half-past eight o'clock the First Battalion of the Coldstream Guards marched in from Chichester, and at once embarked in the Orinoco. Soon after ten o'clock the Third Battalion of Grenadiers, who had come from London by train, marched down to the docks, and were put on board the Ripon and Manilla.
For some time the three ships lay motionless, but at two o'clock a thin wreath of smoke from the little Manilla recalled the reality of the scene, as she leisurely steamed out of the docks. The liipon was not long in following, and at five the Orinoco got under weigh, having on board Generals Bentinck and Eyre.
Nobody who was at Southampton on that morning is likely to forget the scene. Perhaps the departure of no troops could have excited the same depth of feeling as that of the Guards.
Other regiments at stated intervals leave England to take their allotted share of foreign service, but, except upon special occasions, the Guards are always retained at home. They form, as it were, a very part of our domestic retinue, a constant feature in our daily London walk. " The Guards are going," people said; " that looks like work." The splendour of the scene was merged in the pain. Who could view unmoved the sobbing grief of mothers, wives, and sisters, and the more silent but not less touching sorrow of the Soldier, as he left, perhaps for ever, " all that made life dear "?
As I write, I still think I feel the firm grasp, and see the pale face of many a hero, whose hold is now for ever relaxed, and whose face is for ever paled! The steady advance at Alma, the furious melee at Likermann, and the more stealthy but no less fatal hand of disease, have made sad havoc among those gallant men, who united souls of iron to hearts of flesh.
This first detachment of troops was speedily followed by the departure of the Himalaya, conveying the Second Battalion of the Kifles, and the 93rd regiment; the whole number of men embarked in her exceeded 1,200, each of whom, it may be confidently asserted, enjoyed a degree of comfort and ease unknown and undreamed of by their brave predecessors in the Peninsular War, confided as they were to the " tender " mercies of crazy sailing transports.
Gradually the first instalment of the British expeditionary army, amounting to about 10,000 men, reached Malta; and, after several weeks of tedious inaction. Sir George Brown, who had just arrived from England, sailed with the Rifles for Gallipoli, where he was speedily joined by large numbers of French and English troops. War had now been ofiicially declared; and on the 10th of April, Lord Eaglan, whose long and distinguished services both in the field and at the Horse Guards, no less than the high opinion entertained of him by the late Duke of Wellington, pointed him out as the fittest successor of that great man, took his departure for Constantinople by way of Paris, in
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order to assume the command of our Army in the East. Fresh delays occurred at Gallipoli, where large entrenched works were constructed, for the purpose, as was conjectured, of securing a pied a terre, in order to face every eventuality, but more probably for the sake of accustoming troops, fresh from the inactive routine of home service, to the severe and laborious exertions inseparable from extensive siege operations.
These the increasingly serious aspect of the War seemed to designate as inevitable, and, indeed, already public attention in England had begun steadily to turn in the direction of one little spot on the vast map of the Eussian dominions, whose name a few months before had raised but very indeterminate geographical ideas in the minds even of well-informed men.