LETTER TO HIS MOTHER.

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swept out of the straits, and the transports and ships of war, bound to and fro to replenish the ranks with fresh troops and bring back the wounded and fever-stricken, were all that were visible. Yet even in the midst of this absorbing commotion, the young self-sent envoy, palpitating with eager projects, had time for affectionate and serious thought.

"I need not say that you are never absent from my thoughts, in the midst of all my plans more than ever; feeling how deeply you are interested in every one of them, and above all feeling how anxious you must be. I find myself, therefore, referring to you mentally at every moment, and the only thing that gives me anxiety is the fear that you may be so worried and anxious as to interfere with your health. Just in proportion as my present life is one to cause you anxiety do I constantly recur to you. When I was gay and thoughtless in Canada, I did not think half so much about you as now when I have got more weighty matters in hand. I hope you quite see the propriety of not missing such an opportunity of conferring with Lord S. as my voyage with him to the Crimea offers. I have been lying on my back for an hour reading and praying. I think it has done me good and strengthened my faith.

I feel ready for anything that God may see fit, for disappointment, I hope, as well as success."

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It is impossible not to feel that now and then his mother's call upon him for spiritual confidences, and a report of all his thoughts, gave the young man a certain impatience, and that he satisfied her desire for information as to the state of his soul, sometimes with utterances which must have startled her, sometimes with attempts, not very successful, to fall into the more ordinary vein of religious musings. And there is always apparent a little relief in getting back to the things of this world, which it was more easy to treat. "I hope to get Sir E. Lyons and General Simpson to see the propriety of a Circassian expedition,” he says, carried away from his halting religious revelations to the more eager tide of his hopes, "and if so, shall insist upon being accompanied by a strong military force, which will give a weight to my representations which would be wanting to a solitary agent." It is evident from the uncertainty and anxiety of these utterances that Lord Clarendon's recommendation to Lord Stratford must have been more a favourable one of a remarkable and highly gifted young man, than anything in the shape of official instructions to the ambassador.

THE BREATH OF WAR.

167

His next letter is dated from Kamiesch Bay, and gives a curious sensation of the very atmosphere and breath of war. "Long before we saw land we saw the vivid flashes of the guns, and heard the reports when we got nearer: a heavy cannonade was kept up all night. Very curious," he adds, "to be rigging out in ball costume (to dine in the Royal Albert, the Admiral's ship) to the sound of the booming guns of the bombardment. After dinner we watched the bombardment from the stern of the vessel,— sometimes the flashes rapid and close together, and the noise of the cannonading very great; at others it died away for a time." With their glasses they could see the shells whizzing through the air, falling in the trenches, and the rush of the soldiers in all directions. Few spectacles could be so exciting. In the meantime Laurence had given the ambassador his pamphlet to read, with the opinions of which Lord Stratford expressed his full agreement. "He has done everything but promise to send me to Schamyl," the young man adds; "that he staves off, and says he will think about it, &c. Though he can show no good objections, still he does not take to the scheme kindly." Laurence was not yet experienced enough to understand how different a thing it was to silence a statesman in argument, so that

he could "show no good objections," and to get him to take in hand a visionary though hopeful

scheme.

Arrived at the camp, Laurence describes to his mother the innumerable lines of tents, some miserable indeed, some comfortable enough, in which he finds as best he can a friend here and there, and snatches an exciting taste of this life of the camp, in which every pulse of existence was at the highest pressure, all the more stormy and strong in their beating from the constant disaster about, and the frequent carrying past of strings of dying and wounded men. The perpetual sound of the guns soon becomes familiar. "Since I have been here there has not elapsed a single minute, either by day or night, in which I have not heard the report of cannon." One of his objects while he roams among the lines is to find a tent for "Papa," from whom he has been obliged to separate in consequence of his invitation to accompany the ambassador, but who followed him to the camp, and remained a most interested and excited spectator of the extraordinary life there, after Laurence himself had hurried on to further and more wonderful experiences still.

On board the Royal Albert, on the occasion of the dinner-party which took place, while sky

SENT TO CIRCASSIA.

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and water thrilled with the extraordinary sensation of shot and shell, Laurence had met the Duke of Newcastle, who had planned some sort of visit to the Circassian coasts, and who immediately invited the young man to join him. It is curious to note how, as soon as he appears on the scene, this irresistible young man connects himself with all that is highest and most influential near him. He seems to have kept the Duke's proposal in reserve as a sort of pis aller, not without a practical consciousness that an invitation from an ex-Minister and influential political personage was not one to be neglected, yet more intent upon his own plan than on any kind of social promotion. At last, scarcely because convinced by Laurence's reasoning, yet perhaps yielding a little to the influence of his strong conviction, Lord Stratford sent Mr Alison, one of his own staff, on a special mission to Circassia in H.M.S. Cyclops, with instructions to confer with Mr Longworth-the agent in charge of British interests along the coast-line, where many forts and villages had been taken from the Russians-upon the possibilities and advantages of a diversion such as was proposed; and, as Laurence believed, to consult as to the practicability of his own anxiously desired mission to Schamyl. As this latter, however, never came