XX BIOGEAPinCAL SKETai. 



were more than justified, whilst the countr)' was alarmed by the haste and excitement e^dnced by 

 the Government in sending out reinforcements and succour of all kinds to the moribund army. 

 The Brigade of Guards had been among the chief sufferers in the campaign. Draughts were 

 imperatively demanded to fill up the gaps in their ranks ; and in the last days of November 

 1854, Arthur Hay, who had become Captain and Lieut.-Colonel without purchase on 19th Oct. 

 previously, sailed from England for the Crimea, which he reached with his detachment on 

 December 11th, just as the worst period of the chaos which reigned at Balaclava had been tided 

 over with a wonderful wreckage of " institutions " and great injury to the reputations of statesmen 

 and soldiers. 



It must have been with something like amazement that Arthur Hay made his acquaintance 

 with the remnant of the British army, and, above all, with the handful of officers and men who 

 represented the splendid Brigade that had landed at Old Fort three months before. The contrast 

 between the comrades who greeted him as he landed and the sleek fresh lads wlio had accom- 

 panied him from England, must have been painful indeed ; and what met the eye of a soldier 

 accustomed to the luxuiy, if not the waste of Indian armies, and the case and abundance of 

 necessaries in Indian campaigning, could not but have been almost appalling; so that it is 

 not wonderful if the elation he experienced at the thought of active service should have been 

 succeeded presently by indignation and despondency. 



It is useful, even at this length of time, to reproduce the story of the War, as it was told in 

 familiar letters to his father and his family at home, by a man of perfect truthfulness and 

 patriotism, who liad no purpose to serve and no end to gain in wliat he wrote, and who had 

 followed his profession with earnestness and affection ; one, too, who was not making his first 

 proof of arms — one who had campaigned against a formidable enemy, and had taken part in 

 bloody fields. During the whole of his absence, amidst the heart-burnings, disappointments, 

 and miseries of a war disgracefully mismanaged, Arthur Hay rarely let a day pass without 

 noting its occurrences for the information of his relatives. It is wonderful how in the excitement 

 of trench-work, the arduous daily duties of a field-officer, he could have strung his thoughts so 

 harmoniously together to write " currente calamo " an elaborate description of what occurred 

 under his own observation during the entire time his regiment served in the Crimea. 



At the close of the year (1854) we find him under the influence of tlic feelings which were 

 general throughout the army, and were perhaps stronger in the Brigade of Guards than in other 

 corps, because the officers had more time to look around them, and had better sources of infor- 

 mation. In one of his earliest letters, writing from the camp at Balaclava, Arthur Hay says: — 

 " The French force, amounting to 70,000 men, is capitally fed, well-housed, and well-clothed, while 

 our people are starving, wet through, and half naked. One of our divisions had only 2^ lbs. of salt 



