Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions

W. Paulet very kindly invited me to dine with him, and I much regretted that time did not allow of my accepting the invitation, as we had to leave the next morning, and I wished to see Miss Nightingale and Mr. Bracebridge; but I promised to return and spend a part of the evening with him, which I did, and very merrily too. I must say that, in all the transactions connected with my mission to the Crimea, to no gentleman am I more indebted than to Lord W. Paulet, whose gracious reception, continued kindness, and the extreme confidence he placed in me, gave me such extraordinary encouragement that it greatly tended to my success: a failure might have been the result, had he treated me otherwise. Lord W. Paulet gave me the promised letters, and signed the following paper:-- SCUTARI BARRACK HOSPITAL, CONSTANTINOPLE, _May 1st, 1855_. TO BRIGADIER-GENERAL LORD WM. PAULET.--Important regulations to insure for the future a good, clean, wholesome, and nutritious class of food, and delicate beverages, to be daily produced for the comfort of the sick and wounded in all the hospitals of the East, as well as for the standing army, which will prove economical both in a saving of time, and also a pecuniary sense. Monsieur Soyer most respectfully solicits the assistance of Brigadier-General Lord Wm. Paulet in granting the following requisites, which Monsieur Soyer considers indispensable to carry out the objects of the important mission conferred on him by the Government of her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria the First, and of which his lordship has already given proofs of his high approval and satisfaction, as well as his assistance in facilitating the introduction of a completely new system of diet, which has met with the approval of Doctor Cumming, the chief medical officer, and every medical gentleman connected with his staff in the various English hospitals at Constantinople. First requisite.--That for every important hospital, a professed man-cook shall be engaged, with a civilian assistant, instead of military, as is now the case, and the principal to be under military rules and regulations. Second.--That