rtttus la tkt thitar.
LORD IRCAN.
Castle Newe, 20th December 1855.
Sin—I have read with surprise and deep regret your article upon Lord Lucan. If ever any man deserved the Colonelcy of a regiment, his Lordship is "the proper man in the proper place." I have read attentively, I have studied his career from the moment he joined the Seventeenth Lancers, that distinguished regiment ; everywhere there is ample testimony of the man who deserves well of his country. Under him, from a subaltern, which I was in the Seventeenth Lancers long before he joined that corps as a Major, I have observed the man that was in "the right and proper place." As the commander of a regiment of light cavalry, he was second to none in the service. Who will deny this ? Our corps was always a crack corps; but he, when he joined it, began to "open our eyes," and-by his peculiar, his irresistible method, made it more ; he made it a corps-that any country could be proud of, and it would be an ungrateful country if it were not proud of it after Balaklava. Sir, the excellence of the Seventeenth Lancers is mainly, originally, due to thegreat attention and care he, _Lordiu- can, bestowed upon it. It is a proverb in the old corps, and there is no mistake about it. Now, Sir, with regard to all you say about him and his doings in the Crimea, there is ample evidence to prove that better judges than my- self consider him entitled to the compensation, the due reward, even after the services I have named, of a regiment of cavalry ; and I believe from my heart, that none of his old officers, nor those of the Eighth II these two regiments being united by a particular feeling, which need not advert to, as you, Sir, will not understand it, will regret the honour bestowed by our gracious Queen upon Lord Lucan. -He, Sir, is the man that her Majesty should delight to honour ; and thankfully do we hail her gracious choice to promote him to so great an honour as the chief command of so distinguished a corps as the old Eighth. With xegard to your allusions to his Lordship's conduct at Balaklava, to all the pipe-day that you mention, about ".beards and yellow ochre," and other trifles, it has been a matter of deep consultation among his old officers, among those who know his good qualities, who honour, and, Sir, who lose him from his attractive qualities, as a kind, considerate commandinpofficer, though 4' mar- tinet" you please to call him, whether his conduct at Balaklava really de.. served the censure that England was induced to attach to it after that sad and fearful though glorious encounter. The verdict of those who *now him and his eharacter by study, is, that the blame rested on others. Imam no one. Peace and glory be to those that are gone. It is not myintention to disparage the gallant dead, but to the living let England-do due limas;
if she hopes for good soldiers. Many are gone from among us, whom we did not sufficiently value. "A good time is coming," God willing. Why, Sir, as an editor of a journal, rip up old sores "? Englishmen, I hope, and his gallant old corps, depend upon it, are grateful to her Majesty for her just award to that brilliant cavalry officer the Earl of Lucan.
Your obedient servant, Caesura FORMSEi, Bart., late Captain 17th Lancers. [We have no desire to controvert the amiable testimony of SirCharles Forbes in favour of his old comrade. So far, indeed, as newspaper publicity is concerned, Lord Lucan has had a balance of advantage ; for some journals that hastened to print his Lordship's letter to us, with all its epithets of dis- paragement, there stopped short, without affording their readers a similar access.to our justifying answer.—En.]
Previous page
