were General Bentinck, Mr. Stephen Owen, the only
surviving officer of the Resolute, lost on the 14th
November, and Captain Wrottesley of the Royal
Engineers.—General Bentinck left the Crimea on the
8th November. His evidence, therefore, threw little
light upon the state of the army. The men wounded
at the Alma were all taken off the field before noon the
next day. There were not sufficient medical men in
the brigade of Guards. While he was there the brigade
began to want clothing; there was some in store at
Constantinople, but it was at first uncertain whether
the army would winter in the Crimea or not. The men
did not want food; they wanted fuel. The ambulance
carts were "too large and too heavy;" the men
complained of them. The sanitary state of the camp was
satisfactory. He thought the mortality was principally
caused by the want of clothing and exposure under
canvass at such a season, the hard work, and want of
rest. As to the state of the road to the camp, he
thought very little could have been done to improve it,
as, even had there been labour enough available,
macadamisation would have made it almost as
impassable as the mud; there was nothing between it
and the plank road or rail. No men could be spared to
attempt to make it.—Mr. Owen's evidence was to the
effect, that the master of the Resolute had asked, but
could not obtain, permission either to go into port at
Balaklava, or lie off the coast under topsails. The
Resolute carried ammunition: there were other ships
laden with ammunition in the port, that might have been
the reason why the Resolute was not allowed to remain
there. Captain Wrottesley spoke to the deficiency in
the supply of land transport when the troops were at
Varna. It was the chief difficulty against which the
engineers had to contend.—The mistake of our commissariat
was supposing that what worked well in the high
civilisation of Great Britain would do in semi-civilised
countries. The commissariat ought not to be charged
with the transport of the army: it was the chief cause
of the inefficiency of the department; it was overwhelmed
by applications for the means of conveyance.

On Thursday, the 8th, General BENTINCK made some
additions to his evidence. He said that the commissariat
officers attached to his brigade were very efficient.
"The commissariat were sometimes very strict. On one
occasion a voucher was sent back to me because it was
signed half an inch too low. I then took the liberty of
saying, that if this ever occurred again I would have
that commissary turned out of the service. The difficulty                                              never did occur afterwards.''  "The tools supplied
to the pioneers were bad; they were too few, and of
inferior quality. The same tools had been tried at
Chobham, and found inefficient; yet, the tools supplied
to the pioneers in the Crimea were of the same kind."
"All my staff spoke French, but none of them had
passed an examination at the College of Sandhurst."
The other witnesses on that day were Dr. Vaux,
surgeon of the Harbinger steamer, and Mr. Layard, who is
a member of the committee. Dr. Vaux described how
the Harbinger had taken a cargo of vegetables to
Balaklava; how they were detained a fortnight
delivering it; how it got offensive and dangerous before
it was discharged, and the whole rotted on the beach.
There was bread spoiling on the beach also. Mr. Layard
said that he was present and saw the army disembark in
the Crimea. The infantry, and parts of the artillery
landed in British boats; but they were unfit for landing
the horses, and for the horses and part of the artillery
French flat-bottomed boats were obtained. Our troops
had not the same means of conveying baggage as the
French. The field department of the French is very
perfect. Their men cook better. The moment they
arrived on the heights before Sebastopol, they set about
building hospital-sheds. The English troops had no
idea how tents ought to be pitched. Before he left
Balaklava the harbour was in a filthy state. Nothing
had been done to provide storeage, but all was in
confusion. Balaklava was not so favourable a landing-place
as Kamiesch Bay; but if wharfs had been built, matters
would have been better. The burial-ground at
Balaklava was very badly selected. The road to the camp,
although the bad weather had not set in, was "broken
up." The sanitary condition of the camp was
unsatisfactory. With regard to the unroasted coffee—"At
Constantinople there is nothing else going on but coffee-
roasting "; and he had suggested that persons should be
engaged at Constantinople to roast coffee: but that was
not attended to. Mr. Layard said he had lived with the
engineer officers on the right attack, and they
complained that the tools supplied were "very bad indeed."
Some of the fusees were so bad they did not burst at all.
The new traversing platforms for the guns were disabled
the first day of firing, and on the second disabled and
destroyed.

On Friday, the 9th, the witnesses were Mr. James
Clay, owner of steam transports; the Rev. E. G. Parker,
chaplain of the First Division; and Mr. Vellacott, chief
officer of the Harbinger. Mr. Clay, partly corroborated
by Mr. Vellacott, described the state of Balaklava and
its immediate neighbourhood,—the filthiness, the
disorder, and particularly the total anarchy in the
unloading, the responsibility for which he fastened upon
Captain Christie. He enlarged upon the superiority of the
Hull method of transporting horses lying on the ballast,
which is used by horse-dealers, over the method of
slinging hitherto used by government. Mr. Parker
enlarged upon the hospital discomforts; the wasteful
mismanagement of the stores; and the want of system
under Admiral Boxer, whose manners he described as
being rough and repulsive.

The witnesses, on Monday the 12th, were the Duke
of Cambridge—whose presence excited particular
interest; and Colonel Wilson, of the Coldstream Guards.
The Duke of Cambridge followed the course of the army
from Scutari, where he joined it in May, to Sebastopol
where he left it at the end of November. At Scutari,
the commissariat operations were not so satisfactory as
could be desired: there was a great deficiency of forage;
there were no dêpots for storing provisions and other
things. At Varna, the troops were never actually in
want of provisions, but now and then supplies were not
as regular as could be wished, and forage was still
irregularly issued. No want of medical men was felt in the
First Division, until the cholera broke out; but the
Duke thought there should always be three, instead of
two, assistant-surgeons to each regiment. The sickness he
attributed to the climate; and the great mortality of the
Guards, 170 out of 3000, chiefly to the want of porter
as a beverage, to which the men had been accustomed
in London. There was not enough for the whole army,
and it was not thought advisable to make exceptions.
The bread issued at Varna was not so good as the
French bread; but the Duke heard no complaints
as to the deficiency of supply. When they landed
in the Crimea, they expected to be attacked
immediately: for that reason, they carried with them
as little as possible. With few exceptions, every man
wounded at the Alma was taken into the hospital
the same evening. The trenches were begun before
Sebastopol two days after the arrival of the army. "If
we could have spared men (the Duke said) to make a
road, it would have been most essential; but, as far as
my division, we could not find men to make a road and
work in the lines too." The First Division was very
well served by the commissariat; up to the date of his
departure they had never been a day without their
rations; once or twice they might have been short of
rum, but they always had bread and meat. The
commissariat is not suited to the field, and should be placed
under military authority. He attributed the irregular
feeding of the horses to the head-quarter commissariat:
and the non-formation of dêpots to the commissary-
general, Mr. Filder. No provision was made for feeding
the baggage-animals, and his baggage-animals constantly
had no food at all; so that he was obliged to shoot
twenty-two ponies one morning. He was very fortunate
in his staff; two of whom—Captain Butler, killed
at Inkermann, and Captain Hardinge—had taken
honours at Sandhurst. He had a good medical staff.
The ambulance carts were too heavy, and inconvenient.
The loss of life in the Guards was not caused by want of
medicines. Over-work was the great cause of sickness.
He conceived the men were worked to such a degree
that no men could stand it without being seriously
affected in health. The Highland Brigade, stationed
near Balaklava, better supplied and not worked half so