hostilities created great surprise in England. Many questions were
asked in Parliament as to whether the British Commander-in-Chief
had done wisely to treat the Turks as enemies, and there was much
vacillation displayed by the weak Government--Lord Goderich’s--then
in power. In the following June Sir Edward Codrington received a
letter of recall from Lord Aberdeen, dated at the Foreign Office,
London, May, 1828. It was a most elaborate document of twenty
paragraphs, embodying a number of charges of misconception and actual
disobedience of his instructions, and concluded: “His Majesty’s
Government have found themselves under the necessity of requesting
the Lord High Admiral to relieve you in the command of the squadron
in the Mediterranean.” He left Malta for England on September 11th,
amid the hearty regret of his companions-in-arms, and arrived home in
the _Warspite_ on the 7th of October, 1828. A revulsion of public
feeling had meanwhile taken place during the interval--indignation at
his recall and general reprobation of the injustice with which he had
been treated. The Duke of Wellington’s ministry was now in office.
His Grace summoned Sir Edward to an interview, but seems to have
behaved in a very cavilling manner. The pride and sense of honour of
the fine old naval officer were deeply injured by the treatment he
was receiving from a country to whose annals he had just added fresh
laurels. His resentment of the injustice done him is well illustrated
by the following anecdote:--About a year after he had been recalled,
Sir Edward Codrington was present at a party given by Prince Leopold,
when the Duke of Wellington came up to him and said: “I have made
arrangements by which I am enabled to offer you a pension of £800
for your life.” The admiral’s answer was ready, and immediate: “I am
obliged to your Grace, but I do not feel myself in a position to accept
it.... I cannot receive such a thing myself while my poor fellows who
fought under me at Navarin have had no head-money, and have not even
been repaid for their clothes which were destroyed in the battle.” The
duke remonstrated, said there was no precedent for head-money, and
insisted that, as the pension was bestowed by the king, Sir Edward
could not refuse it. But refuse it he did, stoutly and resolutely.
Shortly afterwards one of the duke’s political friends inquired: “What
are you going to do with Codrington?” “Do with him!” answered the duke,
“what are you to do with a man who won’t take a pension?” But time
rights most things; and Sir Edward Codrington lived to see full honour
accorded to him, and those who had fought under him at the battle of
Navarino.
[Illustration: NAVARINO.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Shadwell’s “Life of Lord Clyde,” p. 33.
[2] The heavier armament of most of the Austrian ships consisted of
smooth-bore 48-pounders. New rifled guns of larger calibre were being
made for the Austrian fleet by Krupp at Essen, but when war became
probable the Prussian Government stopped the delivery of them. On the
other hand, one of the Italian ships carried 300-pounder Armstrong
guns, mounted in a turret, and some of the other ironclads had
150-pounders in their armament.
[3] The _Affondatore_ was a new ship built in the Thames just
before the war. A correspondent of the _Times_ who saw her at
Cherbourg, where she called on her way down Channel, wrote that she
looked sufficiently formidable to destroy the whole Austrian ironclad
fleet singlehanded.
[4] For an account of many striking incidents of the march, some of our
readers may be glad to be referred to the graphic narrative of Sergeant
Arthur V. Palmer, of the 79th Highlanders, in the _Nineteenth
Century_ for March, 1890, entitled “A Battle Described from the
Ranks,” and to the controversy to which it gave rise in ensuing numbers
of the same publication.
[5] Now Sir George White, Commander-in-Chief in India.
[6] “La Guerre de la Pologne.”
[7] There is a slight inaccuracy here. The Gorze road runs into the
main road to Verdun at Rezonville.
[8] It was known that a number of French officers were in the enemy’s
ships, and to these Admiral de Rigny addressed a letter of warning.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.