(2 a.m.)
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to state that Mr Roebuck's Motion has been carried by 305 to 148, being a majority of 157 against the Government, a great number of the Liberal party voting in the majority.
The debate was begun by Mr Stafford,[11] who gave a very interesting but painful account of the mismanagement which he had witnessed in the Hospitals at Scutari and Sebastopol, while he gave due praise to the conduct of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge toward the men under his command, and related the cheering effect produced by your Majesty's kind letter, when read by him to the invalids in Hospital. He was followed by Mr Bernal Osborne,[12] who found fault with all the military arrangements at home, and with the system under which Commissions in the Army are bought and sold, but who declared that he should vote against the Motion.
Mr Henley then supported the Motion, directing his attack chiefly against the management of the Transport Service.
Admiral Berkeley,[13] in reply, defended the conduct of the Admiralty. Major Beresford supported the Motion, but defended Lord Raglan against the attacks of the newspapers. Mr. Rice, Member for Dover, opposed the Motion. Mr Miles[14] found fault with the Commissariat, and supported the Motion, saying that the proposed enquiry would apply a remedy to the evils acknowledged to exist in the Army in the Crimea; and Sir Francis Baring, after ably pointing out the inconveniences of the proposed Committee, said he should vote against it, as tending to prevent those evils from being remedied. Mr Rich criticised the composition of the Ministry, and the conduct of the war, and supported the Motion as a means of satisfying public opinion. Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer supported the Motion in a speech of considerable ability, and was replied to by Mr Gladstone in a masterly speech, which exhausted the subject, and would have convinced hearers who had not made up their minds beforehand.
He was followed by Mr Disraeli, who in the course of his speech made use of some expressions in regard to Lord John Russell, which drew from Lord John some short explanations as to the course which he had pursued. Viscount Palmerston then made some observations on the Motion, and, after a few words from Mr Muntz,15 Mr Thomas Duncombe16 asked Mr Roebuck whether, if he carried his Motion, he really meant to name and appoint the Committee and prosecute the enquiry, saying that he hoped and trusted that such was Mr Roebuck's intention. Mr Roebuck declared that he fully meant to do so, and after a short speech from Mr Roebuck, who lost the thread of his argument in one part of what he said, the House proceeded to a division.
The Conservative Party abstained, by order from their Chiefs, from giving the cheer of triumph which usually issues from a majority after a vote upon an important occasion....
[Footnote 11:] Augustus Stafford (formerly Stafford O'Brien), Secretary of the Admiralty in the Derby Ministry of 1852.
[Footnote 12:] Secretary of the Admiralty, who, contrary to modern practice, criticised on this occasion the action of his own colleagues.
[Footnote 13:] Maurice Frederick Fitzhardinge Berkeley, 1788-1867, M.P. for Gloucester 1831-1857.