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The case was full of involved and contradictory imputations. It was a kind of warfare in which the blunt soldier was no match for the wily civilian. The pen in this case was mightier than the sword. The newspapers began to get word of portions of the story, and to give publicity to the affair. The Daily News published Mr. Reid's elaborated charges. Colonel Outram was at his wits' end to know what to do. It was then that Robert Lowe came to the rescue of the harassed soldier. He saw at a glance that Outram was not only an honest, but a sensitively honourable man, who had involved himself mainly through pure simplicity and guilelessness in his present toils. Accordingly, he volunteered to look through the papers which Outram had been trying to compile in his defence in the Record Room of the India House, and saw in a moment that he had stated his case in such an inexpert manner that its publication would simply have damaged him irretrievably with the Court of Directors. Without an hour's delay, and in the midst of his own official duties and other labours, Lowe went step by step through the whole of the Baroda business, mastered it thoroughly, and then made out a complete and lucid refutation of all the accusations which were weighing like a nightmare on the mind of their victim. By means of this prompt, enthusiastic, and gratuitous aid, Outram succeeded in clearing his reputation with his employers, the East India Company, and the groundless charges dissolved and were forgotten.

The following letter, evidently written in reply to one from Outram, speaks for itself.

Robert Lowe to Colonel Outram.

Board of Control: Nov. 16, 1853. My dear Colonel Outram,-It gives me the most sincere pleasure to hear that you are to return to Baroda, and to find the Governor-General has expressed so just an estimate of your great merit and brilliant services. For once, at any rate, honesty has turned out, if not the best policy, at any rate not the worst, as it is too apt to be. It will be a great pleasure to me to reflect that,

thwarted as I have been in almost every object I had at heart, I have, at any rate, contributed a little to redress one gross iniquity. I am happy to think that you were mistaken in supposing that Lord Dalhousie was indisposed towards you. He has done you noble justice in his despatch, and by sending you back to the very scene of your disgrace. I hope, however, that it is not for long, and that we may look forward to see you placed in a larger and more active sphere, though I will be no party to helping you to fight the Battle of Armageddon in Turkey.'

I shall be delighted to have a little Baroda politics from you when you have time. Meanwhile, believe me, with kind regards to Mrs. Outram,

Very sincerely yours,

R. LOWE.

Thus Sir James Outram was enabled to bear that noble and chivalrous part during the Indian Mutiny which forms one of the great traditions of our military history. His statue stands in the heart of London, amid his peers, with Napier and Havelock and General Gordon. But it is just possible that but for the friendly offices of Robert Lowe, some three years before the Mutiny broke out, we should have been deprived of the strong arm of the conqueror of Oudh.

Outram printed merely a few copies of the defence which Lowe had so practically assisted him to draw up, as it was thought irregular, and therefore unwise, for a military officer of the East India Company to rush into the public prints. This pamphlet was sent only to those whom Outram calls 'my honourable Masters '-the Chairman and Directors of the East India Company. But it was so straightforward, able, and convincing a statement that it effectually cleared his character of every aspersion. Mrs. Outram presented a copy to her husband's friend and benefactor, with the simple inscription, To Robert Lowe, Esq., with Lieut.-Col. Outram's respectful compliments.'

The gift was acknowledged by the following letter-brief as it is, a literary monument to Outram's memory.

Allusion to the impending war in the Crimea.

Robert Lowe to Mrs. Outram.

India Board: April 6, 1854.

My dear Mrs. Outram,-I am very much obliged to you for Colonel Outram's book, which I shall value much as the record of a most agreeable episode in my official life, which brought me in contact with the only man I ever saw who realised my idea of one of Plutarch's heroes. You must have been extremely gratified at the high appreciation of Colonel Outram by the Governor-General and the society of Calcutta; and I thought of you when I read the report in the Hurkaru.

With kind regards, in which my wife begs to join, believe me,
My dear Mrs. Outram,
Very sincerely yours,

R. LOWE.

Sir Thomas Farrer adds a quaint touch, which it is difficult to read without a smile. 'Outram,' he says, 'was infinitely grateful, and constantly wrote to Lowe, choosing the queerest topics, amongst others, the Book of Ezekiel, to Lowe's infinite amusement.' Well might his friend Lord Cardwell say, as he did on one occasion: Give Lowe a bit of injustice to ferret out, and no man will do it more eagerly.'

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CHAPTER V

OUT OF OFFICE-WAR IN THE CRIMEA

(1855)

Ir is by no means an easy matter, and yet it seems imperative, to record the personal opinions and sentiments of Lord Sherbrooke on the terrible war which England and France entered upon against Russia for the defence of Turkey towards the close of March, 1854. At this time he still held the subordinate post of Secretary of the Board of Control, but had, of course, little, if any, more influence on the foreign policy of the Aberdeen Government than a head clerk in one of the public offices. But whether consulted or not by those in authority, Robert Lowe was not the man to hold colourless opinions, or to be utterly indifferent at such a crisis in his country's affairs. His personal relations, both to that illfated Cabinet which declared, or rather drifted into, war, and to the reconstructed Coalition' under Palmerston which brought it to a close, were somewhat peculiar, and have never been strictly defined. This is not a matter for wonder, inasmuch as Lowe's post in the Aberdeen Ministry gave him no voice whatever in the management of affairs, domestic or foreign, although, according to the ethics of our Parliamentary system, it threw upon him the onus of supporting the policy of the Cabinet in the House and in the country. In order to explain his actual position and action at the time, it will be necessary to take a rapid survey of the condition of public

affairs.

Before the Russian war broke out, the Aberdeen Cabinet was at war with itself. While everything was gathering for the great storm in the south-east of Europe, Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell were squabbling over a Reform Bill and for the party leadership. It is notorious that on the question of Parliamentary Reform, which Lord Russell always commenced to agitate when he fancied the Whigs were losing ground in the country, Lowe invariably sided with Palmerston. But it is not known that when Palmerston suddenly resigned, in December 1853, on account of Lord John's ill-timed persistency with his Reform measure, Lowe strongly disapproved of what he bluntly called Palmerston's unpatriotic and factious onduct. Hardly had Palmerston delivered his blow against Lord Aberdeen and Lord John Russell, than the news reached England of the destruction of the Turkish squadron by the Russian fleet in the harbour of Sinope. War was then inevitable. Lord John Russell quietly put his Reform Bill into the first convenient pigeon-hole, and Palmerston returned to the Cabinet as though nothing whatever had occurred.

The English and French forces landed in the Crimea on September 14, 1854, and the news of the victories of the Alma and Balaclava at once raised the warlike feeling of the nation to fever-heat. But when fuller accounts reached England, and the hopeless muddle and confusion were revealed, and it began to be realised what a fearful undertaking lay before us in the siege of Sebastopol during that long and terrible winter, then broke forth the universal outcry against Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle which sealed the fate of the coalition Government. Not that there was any reaction against the war itself: from Windsor Castle to the humblest cot in the land the one thought was how to prosecute the siege with renewed vigour; how, at all risks of blood and treasure, most thoroughly to humble the might of Russia. Men like Bright and Cobden, who spoke of peace,

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