Notwithstanding Sir Edward's categorical assurances, the wisdom of constructing the tunnel came under vigorous attack at the hearings from a formidably high official military source—from Lieutenant-General Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Adjutant General of the British Army. A veteran of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny who was considered to be an expert on the art of surprise attack—his routing of such foes as King Koffee in the first Ashanti War of 1873-74, as well as the great promptitude with which he was said to have "restored the situation" in the Zulu War, made him a well-known figure to the British public—Sir Garnet Wolseley had a dual reputation as an imperialist general and a soldier with advanced ideas on reform of the supply system of the British Army. In fact, his enthusiasm for efficiency was such that the phrase "All Sir Garnet" was commonly used in the Army as a way of saying "all correct." The actor George Grossmith made himself up as Wolseley to sing the part of "a modern Major-General" in performances in the eighties of Gilbert and Sullivan's _The Pirates of Penzance_. Sir Garnet later became Lord Wolseley and Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. Sir Garnet Wolseley's opinions of the tunnel project were very strong ones. In a long memorandum he submitted to the Board of Trade committee examining the tunnel project, he described the Channel as "a great wet ditch" for the protection of England, the like of which, he said, no Continental power, if it possessed one instead of a land frontier, would "cast recklessly away, by allowing it to be tunnelled under." And he denounced the construction of a Channel tunnel on the ground that it would be certain to create what he termed "a constant inducement to the unscrupulous foreigner to make war upon us." In agitated language, General Wolseley invoked the opinion of the late Duke of Wellington that England could be invaded successfully, and he reiterated the fear previously expressed by the _Times_ that the English end of the tunnel might be seized from the outside—before any of its defenders had a chance of setting in motion the mechanisms for blocking it up—by a hostile force landing nearby on British soil, whereupon it could readily be converted into a bridgehead for a general invasion of the country. He also declared that "the works at our end of the tunnel may be surprised by men sent through the tunnel itself, without landing a man upon our shores." General Wolseley went on to show just how the deed could be done: