In every sense it needs must be believed
A glorious victory has been achieved –
A victory complete – the fact is clear;
Sebastopol is taken! Cheer, boys, cheer!”
“Sebastopol – What Next?”
Under this heading, the Hastings and St. Leonards News of Oct 5th, had a sensibly written article in which it said:- “Suppose the English nation had listened to Mr. Gladstone, when three months ago, he counselled peace, on the plea that Russia’s humiliation was deep enough for the purpose contemplated, and that we had got everything by the war that we had a right to look for? Suppose we had then recalled our baffled armies from the still unconquered forts of Sebastopol and had allowed the mighty fleet of Russia to rest on the Euxine instead of under it, what would the world have said? what would the ‘neutrals’ have thought and what would have been the tenor of their speech? They would have said that we had shown by our expenditure of blood and bullion that we had set our heart on the capture of a place from which we retired only because we could not take it. They would have taunted us with having made a virtue of necessity, and of giving up the war on a plea of satisfied justice when in our hearts we knew that our spirit had deserted us, and that the strongest people in the world had turned recreant to their honour and their hopes. All men but ourselves would have said that Russia had beaten us; that we had made her Crimean stronghold the focus of our concentrated energy, as she had of her diffusive power, and that her might had overmatched our own. Thank God! the counsel was not taken. We were not doomed to the bitterness of seeing those rivers of blood shed utterly without any proportionate result. It would have been madness – nay even cruelty – to have turned nervelessly aside from the agony of the struggle when that agony was well nigh exchanged for conquest, - to have relinquished the full consummation of a long effort when that effort was on the verge of complete success! If the war ought to have been begun, it ought to be prosecuted steadfastly and at all risks with a higer(sic) purpose than just to show our teeth and run away, with an enemy remaining in the field to despise us for our cowardice and to profit by our imbecility. It is sad to think of war at all, but it is sadder to think of war begun with high resolve and noble aim, suddenly-
