In the course of our talk he did, I must confess, make some strong charges against the Government, and particularly Newcastle. He complained that after the expedition was sent to the Crimea they remained idle, and made no attempt to form an army of reserve or to send continual reinforcements to supply the casualties which everybody knew must occur, and this is true. Again, when he returned from the East[1] he went to Newcastle and urged him to make an immediate provision of wooden houses against the winter, which would in all probability be required, and he suggested that this should be done at Constantinople, where, all the houses being built of wood and the carpenters very skilful, it might easily be done at a comparatively small expense, and whence the conveyance was expeditious and cheap. His advice was not taken; nothing was done, and now that the winter is come, and the troops are already exposed to dreadful suffering and privation, the work is begun here, where it will cost four times as much and, when done, will require an enormous time to convey the houses to the Crimea, besides taking up the space that is urgently required for other purposes. I was obliged to confess that this was inexcusable negligence and blundering, and I repeated what had passed to Granville last night, who could make no defence, and only said that Newcastle, with many merits, had the fault of wishing to do everything himself, and therefore much was not done at all; and that the fact was, nobody ever imagined we should be reduced to such straits, and there was a universal belief that all would have been over in the Crimea before this, and that such things would not be required. I am afraid Newcastle, who is totally ignorant of military affairs of every sort, is not equal to his post, and hence the various deficiencies; nor is Sidney Herbert much better--very well both of them in ordinary times, but without the ability or the resource necessary to deal with such an emergency as the present. I saw a letter yesterday from Charles Windham, a Q.-M.-General on poor Cathcart's staff, with an account of the battle, and he says that if, directly after the march on Balaklava, Sebastopol had been assaulted, it must have been taken. This corresponds with the reports of Russian deserters, who declare that there were only 2,000 men in the place after the battle of Alma. There is always so much difference of opinion and fault finding in such affairs that it is not easy to come to a sound conclusion thereupon. [Footnote 1: Mr. Delane had gone to the theatre of war in the autumn, and was there with Mr. Kinglake, the brilliant historian of the Crimean War.]