To this course, however, Sir Redvers Buller would not consent. He prided himself on his integrity in resisting such a proposal, and has been much praised for refusing to write a despatch for publication, having already written one, which was mainly an indictment of his second-in-command, on whom he threw the responsibility for the failure of the operations. It is the custom of the Service--and a very fair and proper custom it is--that an unfavourable confidential report made upon a junior officer by his superior shall be communicated to him before it is sent forward, so that he may have an opportunity either of excusing himself or of amending his conduct, and may have no reason to complain that advantage has been taken of a confidential communication to make unfavourable reports behind his back, of which he remains in ignorance. Sir Redvers Buller does not appear to have been mindful of this custom, when, instead of writing a simple account of what he proposed to do, and how it failed of accomplishment, he used the opportunity to criticise most unfavourably the conduct of the distinguished officer, his second-in-command, still serving under him in face of the enemy, and left him in complete ignorance of the accusations made against him. This ignorance he knew must last in any case until the despatches were published, and, if they were not published, would never be removed. But Sir Redvers Buller went beyond this, for he attached to his despatch a separate memorandum, ‘not necessarily for publication,’ in which he reiterated his complaints of the conduct of Sir Charles Warren and accused him of such incapacity as unfitted him for independent command. But not a word of this reached Sir Charles Warren, whose exertions in the field during the succeeding month under Sir Redvers Buller contributed so greatly to the victory of Pieters and the relief of Ladysmith; and it was not until he saw the despatches in the newspapers, long after this campaign was over, that he knew of the secret stab his reputation had received at the hand of his commander. Two years later the recently published omissions have informed him how seriously the attack upon his reputation as a soldier was intended.