Sir James Graham's reply was complimentary. "You offer for the consideration of her Majesty's Government," he wrote on the 26th of July, "a plan of operations by which the maritime defences of Cronstadt may, in your opinion, be captured; and in the most handsome manner you declare your readiness to direct and superintend the execution of your plan, if it should be adopted. When the great interests at stake are considered, and when the fatal effects of a possible failure are duly regarded, it is apparent that the merits of your plan and the chances of success must be fully investigated and weighed by competent authority. The Cabinet, unaided, can form no judgment in this matter, and the tender of your services is most properly made by you dependent on the previous approval of your plan. The question is a naval one, into which professional considerations must enter largely. Naval officers, therefore, of experience and high character are the judges to whom, in the first instance, this question ought to be submitted. Let me therefore ask you, before I take any further step, whether you are willing, in strict confidence, to lay your whole plan before Sir Bryan Martin, Sir William Parker, and Admiral Berkeley, who, from his place at this Board, is my first naval adviser? If you do not object to this measure, or to any of the naval officers whom I have named, I should be disposed to add Sir John Burgoyne, the head of the Engineers, on whose judgment I place great reliance. I am sure that you will not regard this mode of treating your proposal as inconsistent with the respect which I sincerely entertain for your high professional character, resting on past services of no ordinary merit, which I have never failed to recognise. But my duty on this occasion prescribes caution and deliberate care; and you will do justice to the motives by which this answer to your request is guided."
To this suggestion Lord Dundonald readily acceded, and his secret war-plans were once more referred to a committee of investigation. Nothing, however, was gained by this step. "I have received," wrote Sir James Graham on the 15th of August, "the report of the committee of officers to whom, with your consent, the plan for the attack on Cronstadt was submitted. On the whole, after careful consideration, they have come to the unanimous conclusion that it is inexpedient to try experiments in present circumstances. They do full justice to your lordship, and they expressly state that, if such an enterprise were to be undertaken, it could not be confided to fitter or abler hands than yours; for your professional career has been distinguished by remarkable instances of skill and courage, in all of which you have been the foremost to lead the way, and by your personal heroism you have gained an honourable celebrity in the naval history of this country."
That letter was disappointing to Lord Dundonald; but, as the value of his plans was not disputed, he hoped that he might yet be allowed to put them in execution. "Be pleased," he said in his reply to Sir James Graham, "to accept the sincere assurance of the high estimation in which I hold the kind and favourable expression of your sentiments towards me. It is indeed gratifying to perceive that the experienced admirals to whom you referred the professional consideration of my secret plan have not expressed any doubt of its practicability."
The report of the admirals, however, had as unfavourable an effect as could have resulted had they declared openly against the project. Week followed week without any successful issue to the efforts of the Baltic fleet; and added to Lord Dundonald's chagrin at not being permitted to achieve the desired success, was his distress at finding unmerited blame thrown by the Government, and by nearly all classes of the public, upon a brave and skilful seaman, for not doing what, with the means at his disposal, it was impossible for him to do. Admiral Sir Charles Napier had failed, through no fault of his own, in the project for attacking Cronstadt, a fortress of almost unrivalled strength, and, by reason of the shallow water surrounding it, unapproachable by the heavy line-of-battle ships and frigates which constituted all his force; and during the months of his necessary inactivity, and after his return to England, Lord Dundonald was almost his only defender. "In justice to Admiral Napier, against whom 'the indignant dissatisfaction of the nation' is said to be directed," he wrote in a letter to the "Morning Post," on the 21st of September, "permit me to say that success could not have attended the operations of ships against stone batteries firing red-hot shot, however easily unresisting walls may be leisurely demolished. There is but one means to place these parties on an equal footing, and that I confidentially laid before the Government."
"The unreasoning portion of the public," he wrote to Sir James Graham on the 11th of November, "have made an outcry against old admirals, as if it were essential that they should be able to clear their way with a broadsword. But, my dear Sir James, were it necessary—which it is not—that I should place myself in an arm-chair on the poop, with each leg on a cushion, I will undertake to subdue every insular fortification at Cronstadt within four hours from the commencement of the attack." And Sebastopol, he urged, could be as easily captured, if he were only allowed to put his plans in operation. But it was not allowed. "Nothing new can be attempted at the present moment," answered Sir James Graham. "Winter will put an end to all active operations in the Baltic; and I still venture to hope that at Sebastopol our arms will be triumphant."
Lord Dundonald, though pained, not so much on his own account as in the interests of the nation, at the way in which his offers were treated, persevered in making them. It was now too late in the season to effect anything in the Baltic; but the siege of Sebastopol was being carried on without any immediate prospect of success; and he yearned, with all the ardour that he had displayed half a century before, for an opportunity of rendering success both certain and immediate.
To this end he wrote again to Sir James Graham, and also for the first time to the Earl of Aberdeen, on the 30th of December. "The pertinacious resistance made at Sebastopol, and the possibility of events that may still further disappoint expectation," he said to Sir James, "have induced me to address Lord Aberdeen, saying that 'if it is the opinion of the Cabinet, or of those whom they consult on military affairs, that, failing the early capture of Sebastopol, the British army may be in danger, I offer to the discernment of the Cabinet my still secret plans of attack,' whereby the garrisons would be expelled from the forts or annihilated, in defiance of numerical force, and possession obtained, at least during sufficient time to enable the chief defences to be blown up and the harbour fleet to be destroyed. If you will so far favour me, I should be gratified by having an opportunity of demonstrating to your strong mind, free from professional bias, the fact that combustible ships may be not only placed on a parity with stone forts fitted to fire red-hot shot, but secured from injury more effectually than if incased in iron."
Sir James Graham's answer was, like its forerunners, complimentary, but nothing more. "I can never cease," he wrote, "to do justice to your patriotic desire to serve your country, which is evinced by your desire to encounter, in your own person, the dangers attendant on your experiment, and not to transfer the hazard of the enterprise to others." But to the enterprise itself he would give no sanction. "Your plans," he said, "by my desire were submitted to the consideration of most competent naval and military officers, whose impartial judgment cannot be impugned, and, on the whole, they did not recommend the trial of the experiment which you are anxious to make. Neither Lord Aberdeen nor I can venture to place our individual opinions in opposition to a recorded judgment of the highest authority on a question which is purely professional. I see no advantage, therefore, in renewing the discussion with you at the present moment."
Had the "impartial judgment" by which Sir James Graham held himself bound been adverse to the principle of Lord Dundonald's plans, or declared them to be anything more than "inexpedient in present circumstances," more weight might have been attached to it; although even then he could have pointed to the opposite verdict, given in 1847, by other judges quite as impartial and competent, who, while objecting to part of them on the score of their deadly efficacy, had officially announced their belief in the applicability of another part—the part of which Lord Dundonald now proposed to make most use—and recommended its adoption "when the opportunity of employing it may occur."
He therefore refused to be thwarted in his efforts to render to his country the great service that he considered to be in his power, and Sir Charles Napier's removal from the command of the Baltic fleet, in January, 1855, gave him an opportunity of offering to use that power under conditions that would relieve the Admiralty of all direct responsibility in the event of his failure. "I am much gratified," he said in another letter to Sir James Graham, "to learn that her most gracious Majesty has been pleased to reserve the high dignity of Admiral of the Fleet as a reward for services. Under this impression, permit me to solicit the favour of being allowed to contend for that distinction, not by reference again to opinions, which may prove fallacious, but by actual experimental proof of the safety and facility of assailing fortifications by my secret plans. By them, the damage and loss of life sustained by the allied squadron in their late attack on the fortifications of Sebastopol might have been partly if not wholly averted, and probably a tenfold destruction inflicted on the enemy. If this is admitted—and I do not think it can be disputed—I hope you will allow me to demonstrate the general applicability of these simple, comparatively costless, and in my opinion infallible means of annihilating the power of all kinds of batteries that can be approached to windward within half a mile. These plans have been entertained and pondered over by me during forty years, and now again I offer to explain, to test, and to put them in execution."