DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
The decease of the most remarkable man in Europe, perhaps in the world, the great Duke of Wellington, filled the country with grief, commanded the sympathy of all nations friendly to Great Britain, and the attention of civilized men in every portion of the world. In England, it was the most important event of the year’s history. No man exercised the same influence over her fortunes. His name was a tower of strength before her enemies, and his wisdom the chief and dernier ressort in her councils. He was the most confidential private counsellor of the queen, who regarded him with the veneration and affection due to the friend of her childhood, when she was neglected by the corrupt court of one uncle, and the apathetic court of another, the sovereigns of the empire over which she also was destined to reign. The removal of the great Duke was an irreparable loss to her majesty and to the country she so wisely ruled; and in no branch of the public service was this loss felt more than in the army, which he had raised to an unprecedented pitch of efficiency and glory. A brief notice of the life of this extraordinary man is desirable, that the reader may more clearly see the important influence his death necessarily had upon the position and policy of the United Kingdom. Concerning the origin and career of this glorious man, J. H. Stocqueler has made the following striking remarks:—
“Nobly born, carefully educated, and connected with people enjoying considerable political influence, he was subjected to no early wrestlings with fate. He was launched upon the stream of life under the most favourable auspices, tasting neither the bitterness of poverty nor the humiliation of obscurity. His public life, from first to last, was one uninterrupted chain of glory, each link more brilliant than its predecessor, and, unlike other great adventurers, whose course from insignificance to splendour was broken, through a series of mischances or their own unsteadiness of character, his progress knew no culminating point—his fame no tarnish, his fortunes no reverse.
“But the even tenor of his career is no disparagement of the vast merit of the Duke of Wellington. If his antecedents were less humble than the public beginnings of other men, let it be remembered that he reached a higher eminence than any personage of whom the annals of England possess a record—always excepting John, Duke of Marlborough, his prototype in all things but political virtue. Nor has his upward path been free from a thousand obstructions, which none but a gigantic mind and a firm heart could surmount. His difficulties began with his direct responsibility. His triumphs followed as the results of his indomitable perseverance, his unflinching courage, and his amazing constancy.”
The most accurate and, at the same time, brief account of the birth, education, and early professional progress of the future hero, is one written by the author just quoted.*
* Stocqueler’s “Life of Wellington,” p. 23.
“It was in March, 1769, that Arthur Wellesley first saw the light. Biographers differ as to the date and the locality; but it appears by the evidence taken before a parliamentary committee in 1791, to inquire into a petition against his return for the borough of Trim, on the ground of his being a minor, that he was really born at Dangan Castle, in the county of Meath, Ireland, at the time alleged above. His father was the second Earl of Mornington, who enjoyed much celebrity for his nice musical taste; his mother, Anne, the eldest daughter of Viscount Dungannon. Early in life Arthur Wellesley was sent to Eton College for his education, in conjunction with his afterwards distinguished brother, Richard.
“Being desirous for the military profession he was sent to the college of Angiers, directed by Pegnard, a celebrated French engineer.
“At the age of eighteen, after he had gone through a course of French military instruction, Arthur Wellesley was gazetted to an ensigncy in the 73rd regiment. This was in March, 1787. Nine months later he was promoted to a lieutenancy in the 76th. Subsequent exchanges carried him into the 41st foot, and the 12th Light Dragoons.
“In 1791 (30th of June), being then twenty-two years of age, he procured a company in the 58th Foot, whence, four months later, he exchanged to a troop in the 18th Light Dragoons. Under the system in force in the British army, officers, avid of rapid promotion, must seek it in other regiments than their own, if their immediate seniors are prepared to purchase advancement. As Arthur Wellesley had had no opportunities of displaying zeal and gallantry in the field during these four years of service, his quick progress may be fairly set down to the combined action of ministerial favour, and a sufficiency of pecuniary means. Neither at school, nor college, nor in the performance of the easy regimental duty peculiar to a time of peace, and incidental to five exchanges, did he display any of those qualities which developed themselves in so remarkable a manner a few years later.
“Previous to obtaining his company, Lieutenant Wellesley was returned a member of the Irish parliament. He sat for three years, during a portion of which time he was an aide-de-camp to the Earl of Westmoreland, then Lord-lieutenant of Ireland.
“The young member occasionally spoke, always in opposition to liberal measures; and his oratory was characterised more by a curt and decided form of expression than by the efflorescence then popular among the Grattans, Cuffs, Parnells, and other members of the legislature. His opinions were of the tory cast; and, even at that early period he opposed himself to any consideration of the Catholic claims, and to schemes of parliamentary reform. As an aide-de-camp, and a member of a Protestant family, his sentiments were, of course, coloured by the opinions of the noblemen and statesmen with whom he associated.”
The early military services of Arthur Wellesley, both in Europe and in India, were brilliant. Some of his first exploits in action were marked by promptitude and genius rivalling in lustre the feats of his proudest days. In India, his conquests of the refractory chiefs, Dhoondiah and the Peishwah, and his successes in the Mysorean war, under Baird, were full of daring and of glory.*
* For an extended account of General Wellesley’s Indian campaigns see “Nolan’s History of the British Empire in India and the East.” Virtue; City Road and Ivy Lane, London.
As a general officer, he showed every quality which commanded respect from his seniors, reverence from his juniors, confidence alike in those whom he commanded, and those who devolved responsibility upon him, and the astonishment and admiration of his enemies. The treatment he received in India was not just nor considerate, and to the latest period of his life he felt that neither by his brother the Marquis Wellesley, the East India Company, nor the government at home, was he requited as his merits deserved, nor did he deem that their conduct to him while on actual service was what it should have been. The self-mastery and loyalty with which he endured slights and injustice while rendering great services, have probably never been exhibited equally by any soldier of ancient or modern times. On the occasion of his being superseded at Bombay by General Baird, he wrote:—“My former letters will have shown you how much this will annoy me; but I have never had much value for the public spirit of any man who does not sacrifice his private views and convenience when it is necessary.” **
** “The Duke of Wellington’s Supplementary Despatches relating to India.” Edited by his Son.
The time has arrived when foreign writers, even in France, are beginning to do justice to the hero’s fame, and to the genius displayed in his Indian campaigns, which have been so much overlooked both at home and abroad, although so well appreciated in India. An able writer, a French officer—Captain Brialmont—has, in a recent work,*** especially drawn the attention of military men in France to the Indian campaigns of General Wellesley.
*** “History of the Life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington,” from the French of M. Brialmont, Captain of the Staff of the Belgian Army. With emendations and additions by the Kev. G. K. Gleig, M.A., Chaplain-General to the Forces.
In describing the conduct of the general at Assaye, Brialmont remarks:—“It was an inspiration of the greatest hardihood which induced the English general to engage a force ten times as great as his own, and covered in its front by an important river. The battle of Assaye will always be regarded as one of the boldest enterprises of that general, whom certain authors represent as endowed only with the qualities which are necessary for defensive warfare.”
Some time after his arrival in Europe, he was entrusted with a command in Portugal, against the French then occupying that country. He was much embarrassed by his own government, and the wilfulness of the people to rescue whom was his mission. The convention of Cintra arrested his successes. The stupidity of his superiors defeated his schemes of conquest. “Yet, even as things stood, the success achieved was of no ordinary character. The British soldiers had measured their swords against some of the best troops of the empire, and with signal success. The ‘Sepoy General’ had indisputably shown that his capacity was not limited to oriental campaigns. He had effected the disembarkation of his troops—always a most hazardous feat—without loss, had gained two well-contested battles, and in less than a single month had actually cleared the kingdom of Portugal of its invaders. The army, with its intuitive judgment, had formed a correct appreciation of his services, and the field-officers engaged at Vimiera testified their opinions of their commander by a valuable gift: but it was clear that no place remained for General Wellesley under his new superiors, and he accordingly returned to England, bringing with him conceptions of Spanish affairs which the event but too speedily verified.” *
* Traveller’s Library: “Memoir of the Duke of Wellington.”
Previous to the expedition to Portugal, and after his return, he sat in parliament, and held the office of Secretary for Ireland. In 1809 he received the thanks of parliament for his military services at Vimiera and Rolica. In the meanwhile, disaster frowned upon the arms of Spain. “Her armies were dispersed, her government bewildered, and her people dismayed; the cry of resistance had ceased, and, in its stead, the stern voice of Napoleon, answered by the tread of 300,000 veterans, was heard throughout the land.” **
** “History of the Peninsular War,” by Sir William Napier.
Portugal was menaced. Sir John Cradock, who commanded, was unequal to the occasion, and the British government was about to withdraw the English army of occupation, when it occurred to Lord Castlereagh that Sir Arthur Wellesley ought to be consulted. That officer counselled the augmentation of the British forces, and drew up a plan of defence. The government offered him the command of the Portuguese, which he declined. Finally, Cradock was recalled, and Sir Arthur accepted the command of the allied English and Portuguese. He again landed in Portugal, amidst the acclamations of troops and people, and, with his characteristic activity, commenced operations. Then followed the passage of the Douro, one of the most daring exploits recorded in the history of war. ***
*** Captain Brialmont says that French generals admit that the passage of the Douro was bold even to rashness.
The passage of the Douro foiled the French commander, and compelled him to retire. After various complicated movements, the rival armies confronted one another at Talavera, where a dreadful conflict issued in victory to the British. The British, unsustained by proper support, through the negligence of the English government, and the irrational conduct of the Portuguese, were compelled to fall back. Before doing so, Wellesley accomplished another grand feat—the execution of the lines of Torres Vedras. This defensive position was skilfully selected, and as skilfully fortified. Such was the secrecy and celerity observed in the construction of the works, that the French had learned nothing of their existence, numerous as were their spies, and the English army generally knew as little of it as the French. When the moment arrived for the execution of his project, the English general retired behind these lines, in the face of an overwhelmingly numerous enemy, who gazed with wonder upon the impregnable defences which were presented to their view.
Before, however, the British accomplished their retreat, one more victory testified their greatness in battle, and the superiority of their chief. The English took post on the heights of Busaco. The French attacked the position, and were repulsed. Having entered the lines of Torres Vedras, the British awaited the advance of the grand army which was to drive them into the sea. Massena advanced in his pride and his power, but recoiled from the task of storming such well-prepared positions. Having waited long enough, without being able to make any impression upon the English lines of defence, to bring disease, discouragement, and scarcity of provisions upon his own army, he retired, harassed in his retreat by the exulting English. While Wellesley was thus engaged in personally superintending the defence of Lisbon, by maintaining the fortified lines thrown up between the Douro and the sea, he was also occupied with general plans for ultimately driving the French out of the Peninsula, directing operations in places at a distance from his head-quarters, and carrying on a laborious correspondence with the Portuguese and British civil authorities, and even with the Spanish patriots. When Massena was driven into Spain, Wellesley’s first care was the reconquest of the frontier fortresses. Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajoz, fell into the hands of the British general, then Lord Wellington. His successes were, however, obtained with great difficulty and loss of his soldiers, through the inadequate supply of material to his army by the home authorities. Every fortress which was not strategically abandoned by the French, was won by the skill of the general-in-chief, and the recklessness of life shown by his soldiers, in spite of the want of almost every appliance proper for an army. The sieges which Wellington prosecuted to a successful result “will always reflect immortal honour on the troops engaged, and will always attract the strongest interests of an English reader; but which must, nevertheless, be appealed to as illustrations of the straits to which an army may be led by want of military experience in the government at home. By this time the repeated victories of Wellington and his colleagues had raised the renown of British soldiers to at least an equality with that of Napoleon’s veterans, and the incomparable efficiency, in particular, of the Light Division was acknowledged to be without a parallel in any European service. But in those departments of the army where excellence is less the result of intuitive ability, the forces under Wellington were still greatly surpassed by the trained legions of the emperor. While Napoleon had devoted his whole genius to the organization of the parks and trains which attend the march of an army in the field, the British troops had only the most imperfect resources on which to rely. The engineer corps, though admirable in quality, was so deficient in numbers, that commissions were placed at the free disposal of Cambridge mathematicians. The siege trains were weak and worthless against the solid ramparts of Peninsular strongholds. The intrenching tools were so ill made that they snapped in the hands of the workmen, and the art of sapping and mining was so little known that this branch of the siege duties was carried on by drafts from the regiments of the line, imperfectly and hastily instructed for the purpose. Unhappily, such results can only be obviated by long foresight, patient training, and costly provision; it was not in the power of a single mind, however capacious, to effect an instantaneous reform, and Wellington was compelled to supply the deficiencies by the best blood of his troops.” *
* “Memoir of the Duke of Wellington.”
The terms in which this illustrious man complained of the incompetency of the government at home are instructive to those who, in the present generation, contend for reform. “I do not receive one-sixth part of the money necessary to keep so great a machine in motion.” “The French army is well supplied,” he wrote on one occasion, “the Spanish army has everything in abundance, and we alone, on whom everything depends, are dying of hunger.” “I am left entirely to my own resources,” he wrote in 1810, “and find myself obliged to provide, with the little which I can procure, for the wants of the allies, as well as for those of the English army. If I yield, God help me, for nobody will support me.” This sorrowful language was too true, for so utterly corrupt was the English administration, that in order to save themselves from public odium, they would have ruined him. A distinguished reviewer of one of the memoirs of his grace thus comments upon the treatment which he received:—“From the inadequate supplies of money sent to him from his government, he had to create a paper-money of his own, and to increase his supplies by opening a trade in corn with America. When he complained of the attention which the home government paid to the criticism of some of his officers, they replied that these officers were better generals than he; they compelled him to send back the transports on which, in the event of a defeat, the safety of his army depended; and on one occasion Lord Liverpool gave instructions to an officer of engineers at Lisbon of which Wellington knew nothing, and which began with these words, which were also news to him:—‘As it is probable that the army will embark in September, &c.’” So much was the duke dependant on his own resources that, being unable to prevent the departure of some of his generals, he was often obliged to discharge himself, on the same clay, the duties of general of cavalry, leader of the advanced guard, and commander of two or three columns of infantry. His want of material was such that at the siege of Badajoz he had to employ guns cast in the reign of Philip II., and, for lack of mortars, he had to mount his howitzers upon wooden blocks; while at Burgos he was obliged to suspend the attack till a convoy of ammunition should come up, which had been expected for six weeks. He was even obliged to complain of his army. “We are an excellent army on parade,” he said, “an excellent one to fight, but take my word for it, defeat or success would dissolve us.” The discipline was by no means perfect. After the battle of Vittoria the soldiers obtained among them by way of booty about a million sterling; many regiments disbanded themselves, and some three weeks afterwards the commander-in-chief had to announce that there were still 12,500 marauders among the mountains absent from duty.
Notwithstanding every impediment which the lazy, conceited, and impracticable character of the Spaniards, the want of civil organization in Portugal, and the ignorance and incapacity of his own government could interpose, Lord Wellington, in a series of campaigns, and of great and sanguinary battles, drove the French from Spain, followed them into France, defeated them at Bayonne, Orthes, and Toulouse, and only paused in his career of victory upon the announcement of the allies entering Paris, and the abdication of Napoleon.
The policy and conduct of the Duke of Wellington during the occupation of France by the allies were stern, but just and wise. He was inflexible in carrying out the objects of the allies, but temperate and equitable in curbing the vindictive propensities of the allied chiefs and armies. He met the great continental sovereigns and generals in Paris on a footing highly honourable to himself and his nation; his influence preponderated in their counsels, and he received more marks of deference than any other man of the times and the occasion.
On his return to England, his name and person were surrounded by honours. He received in the House of Lords at once the recognition of all the steps of the peerage—they had been conferred upon him in his absence. He was the idol of the court and the aristocracy, and to a considerable extent of the people. The escape of Napoleon from Elba led to the British and Prussian campaign in Belgium, which involved the sanguinary battles of Quatrebras and Waterloo, in the former of which Ney sustained a terrible repulse from Wellington, and in the latter Napoleon was utterly defeated and put to flight, and the way to Paris opened for the conquerors. Once more the duke occupied France with his armies, and with still greater opportunity than at the close of his previous campaign for displaying the eminent qualities which he possessed in the council, as well as in the field. After the peace, and the banishment of Napoleon to St. Helena. Wellington obtained an extraordinary influence in the councils of successive British sovereigns, and became one of the most active and potential politicians in Europe. His career of war had closed—a new public race was run by him, in which his countrymen were less disposed to regard him with favour. How he fulfilled his new destinies is still matter of discussion. The tory school of politicians, to which he belonged, consider him as having in a great measure forsaken his party, and lowered the standard of his principles. Liberal politicians regard him as having struggled to maintain class interests contrary to the convictions of his great mind, and in subservience to the interests and prejudices of his “order.” His country generally has, therefore, not given him credit for the highest order of statesmanship, but reveres his memory as that of a man who served the country and the crown with fidelity, and who studied the national honour in all things. Probably the following estimate of his political capacity, position, and services, is as accurate as any ever given to the public:—“By a destiny unexampled in history, the hero of these countless conquests survived to give more than one generation of his countrymen the benefit of his civil services. Such an ordeal has never before been endured by any public character. Military experience does not furnish the fittest schools of statesmanship, especially when the country to be governed is that of a free, intelligent, and progressive people. But, if the political principles of the great man who has now departed were not always reconcilable with the opinions and demands of modern advancement, they were at least consistent in themselves, were never extravagantly pressed, never tyrannically promoted, and never obstinately maintained to the hindrance of the government or the damage of the state. In estimating Wellington’s politics it must never be forgotten that he was a politician of 1807, and that he descended to us the last representative of a school that had passed. If he was less liberally-minded than the statesmen of his later days, we may fairly inquire how many of his own generation would have been as liberal as he?”
In 1822, the duke appeared at the allied conference at Vienna, the object of which was to put down the rising demand on the continent for constitutional government. Spain was intensely agitated, and its imbecile monarch was afraid to resist any longer the call for free institutions, so loudly and unanimously made by his subjects. The continental sovereigns viewed the slightest approach to political freedom with alarm. The restored Bourbon government of France took the lead in the policy of repression, and demanded the countenance of the continental powers, and of England, for an invasion of Spain, to support the king in trampling out the last spark of liberty among his subjects. Mr. Canning was minister for foreign affairs in England. He instructed the Duke of Wellington to resist the proposal of France, and to insist upon non-intercession. Either his grace performed his part inadequately, as was generally believed in England, or the continental sovereigns, having used England for the destruction of Napoleon, were agreed to thwart her influence, and make no concessions to her opinion, for they unanimously supported the project of a French invasion of Spain. This event took place, inflicting upon the Spanish people more indignity, disdain, and injury than the invasions by Napoleon had done. The British government talked much and did nothing. “The Holy Alliance” took no notice of the indignant orations in the British parliament, the protests of the ministry, and the explanations of the duke. A French invasion overthrew liberty in Spain within little more than ten years of the date when a British army had driven out the French in the name of liberty, independence, and non-intervention. The Spaniards never believed that the duke was free from some participation in this aggression, and his popularity, such as it was at the close of the war, was never regained in that country. The event also deprived the Spaniards of all confidence in professions of non-intervention and respect for national independence in England. They did not believe that her powerless protests were sincere, but regarded her as having made the previous war in the Peninsula for a policy exclusively her own—the suppression of the popular and imperial elements in France. The Duke of Wellington, in his place in the house of peers, declared that he had faithfully carried out Mr. Canning’s instructions, but that the allied courts were unmoved by arguments or protests.
In 1826 the duke was sent by his sovereign on an especial embassy to St. Petersburg. He was not favourably impressed with the Emperor Nicholas or his people. He regarded the whole policy of Russia as faithless and aggressive, and only friendly to England as far as she might be made, through the false representations of the Russian diplomatists, unconsciously subservient to the territorial aggrandisement of Russia, especially in the direction of Turkey. The Emperor Nicholas himself the duke learned to regard with distrust, mingled with personal contempt for his duplicity.
At home, the duke was the object of innumerable honours. A mansion was erected for him, called Apsley House, at Hyde Park Corner, £200,000 was voted to purchase for him and the inheritors of the title, the estate of Strathfieldsaye, in Hampshire, which is entailed, on condition of the noble owner, for the time being, annually presenting a tri-colour flag to her majesty, on the 18th of June, the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. These flags have been since accumulating, and hang in the armoury of Windsor Castle, with similar trophies commemorative of the battle of Blenheim, rendered by the heirs of the great Duke of Marlborough.
In 1818 the duke was made master-general of the ordnance; in 1819, governor of Plymouth; and in 1820, colonel of the Rifle Brigade.
The great continental courts in 1818 gave him the rank of field-marshal in their respective armies, together with military and civil distinctions, such as were only customarily conferred on crowned heads, or the very noblest of their subjects.
Meanwhile the British Isles were intensely agitated; a cry for parliamentary reform resounded from the gates of Buckingham Palace to the Land’s-end, to John O’Groat’s house, and to the cliffs of Connemara. Roman Catholic emancipation was another demand, which was ceaselessly heard, and the Protestant dissenters of England were active and importunate in demanding redress for the grievances of which they complained. The duke was adverse to all these concessions, and determined to resist them as long as they could be resisted, with safety to the crown and peerage. The people hated the prince-regent, and when he reached the throne as the fourth George, he was one of the most unpopular monarchs in Europe. The measures adopted by this prince to preserve illiberal institutions were bloody and remorseless; executions for political offences were numerous all over the land, men of virtue and honour were incarcerated for liberal opinions uttered or printed, public meetings were put down by charges of cavalry, or by cannon loaded with grape and canister, drawn up against an unarmed and really loyal people, exasperated by unendurable oppressions. Against these wickednesses the duke exerted no influence, raised his voice in no protest, but was in the minds of the people regarded as one of the haughtiest of their oppressors. On the death of Lord Liverpool, and the appointment of Mr. Canning to the premiership, he received from the duke an uncompromising, bitter, and ungenerous opposition. Canning was professedly a Conservative, but his opinions were moderately liberal, and everything liberal was resisted by Wellington and his alter ego in politics, Mr. Peel, afterwards Sir Robert. There was a bigoted and angry party spirit in all the duke’s proceedings. He would not command the army nor direct the ordnance, but resigned all his military offices, because the king made Canning the chief of a ministry in which the duke himself served. Canning and Huskisson introduced a corn-bill, which was the first relaxation proposed by members of a government to the corn-law. This measure had been prepared in the Liverpool cabinet, and received the assent of the duke himself; yet such was his animosity to the moderately liberal policy of Canning, that he proposed the rejection of the bill in the lords, and threw it out. There was a want of honour and good faith in this conduct, wholly at variance with the manly, frank, straightforward character of the duke, and there is no way of accounting for it but by supposing that he was instigated to the course he adopted by Peel, whose tortuous and uncertain principles and policy began to assume prominence. It was Peel’s character throughout his career to betray all who trusted in him as a leader, and to cany by trick and treachery all the measures against which, in his public life, he most vehemently and acrimoniously inveighed. The duke was taunted in the house with intriguing for the premiership. He declared, in reply, that he was “unqualified for such a situation.” Nevertheless, when offered, he accepted it. He declared that he “should be mad even to think of it;” but he did think of it, at all events afterwards, and took it, and also filled it better than his tory predecessors. Perhaps the truth of the case was, that Peel originated all the intrigues against Canning, in which the duke was unconsciously an abettor of the designs of that artful man. Peel saw that his best hope of attaining to the chief post in the councils of the country was by using skilfully and patiently the influence he had acquired over the duke. He foresaw, as it was easy to foresee, that events would soon make the duke tired of the post, and that he would in such case certainly devolve it upon him, as “his man of all work.” One of the most harassing oppositions to which an English premier was ever exposed was directed and led by Wellington and Peel against Canning, chiefly on the ground of his willingness to concede Catholic emancipation, and some relaxation of the duties upon corn, and the restrictions upon trade. In this opposition the duke was sincere, but there is good ground for believing that Peel, filled with envy against Canning, was already laying his own schemes for carrying concession even farther than Canning or Huskisson ever dreamed of doing. Canning was shamelessly deserted and betrayed on all hands. He displayed wonderful ability, justifying the language of Byron: “Canning is a genius, almost a universal one, a scholar, a wit, a statesman, an orator, and a poet.” He struggled against the factious opposition treacherously carried on in the name of principles by men who, like Peel, felt no homage for them, until his proud and sensitive heart broke. The Peel and Wellington faction killed him. In the fourth month of his premiership he died at his post, leaving to posterity a great name, and an eternal reproach against his unprincipled persecutors.
Lord Goderich (“prosperity Robinson”) could not carry on the government. The duke was made premier, eight months after he had publicly declared his own incapacity for such an office. One of his first acts, notoriously under the influence of Peel, was to give office to Huskisson, the champion of free trade, and the energetic colleague of Canning! He added four more of Canning’s colleagues. Thus, after he and Peel had declared Canning and his cabinet to be irreligious, revolutionary, and dangerous to the country, in all the cant phrases of the time, their very first act was to take possession, as it were, of the Canning cabinet itself, and next of the Canning policy, on account of which the illustrious dead had been solemnly denounced by the one, and vituperated, in a manner far exceeding parliamentary licence, by the other. The repeal of the corporation and test acts, demanded by the dissenters, the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and the claims of the commercial community, and the political economist, for a relaxation of the protectionist policy were now to be satisfied; but the policy chosen was to keep all these parties at bay, to resist all melioration of things as they were as long as possible, and then to concede nothing on the ground of justice, or of human rights, but only what popular power could force. This policy Peel did not manage happily, and the duke was brought down with him as by a dead weight. The parliamentary tact of Peel, his debating power, his aptitude for public business, and the singular influence of the duke, worked wonders for a time; but eventually much more had to be conceded to the public power, than, if at first and generously, the government had shown a reforming spirit, would have been at once insisted upon.
Lord John Russell moved for a repeal of the corporation and test acts, oppressions which goaded the dissenters, and which in themselves were as profane as they were hypocritical. Of course the duke and Mr. Peel resisted this, but the House of Commons carried the measure.
Instead of the duke and “his man Friday,” as the wags of the day termed Peel, resigning, as men of honour ought to have done, they resolved to take up the measure against which they had voted and argued, and uttered the most earnest warnings on the sacred ground of religion! The duke carried the measure through the House of Lords!
A month afterwards a corn-bill, the first inroad actually effected upon the protective system, was carried in the House of Commons. The duke declared the repeal or modification of the corn-laws to be especially wicked, as injuring the landed interest; nevertheless, he took up the measure and carried it through. Corn might come in, if only Whigs and Radicals could be kept out. Thus early, measures which Canning proposed with consistency and honour,—and for proposing which these men hunted him to death,—they inconsistently, and with a violation of principle which lowered the character of public men, carried through parliament to preserve the ministerial ascendancy of Peel and the party.
As the session advanced the spirit of reform both in and out of parliament advanced. Penryn and East Retford were rotten boroughs, with only a handful of constituents. The reformers demanded the transfer of the representation from two such insignificant and corrupt places to Manchester and Birmingham. The duke would not consent to the enfranchisement of the two great centres of manufactures; he held fast by the rotten boroughs. Huskiseon, Grant, Lamb, and Lords Dudley and Palmerston resigned. Thus the Canning cabinet was expunged, and a pure tory remainder formed the nucleus of a new ministry, which was composed of Lord Aberdeen, Sir H. Hardinge, and Sir George Murray,—men in every way immeasurably inferior to those who, no longer able to follow the bigoted yet inconsistent and time-serving policy of the duke and Peel, were obliged to resign office.
The state of Ireland now became alarming. The Roman Catholic population, led by O’Connell, menaced insurrection, and a system of agitation was maintained very effective, and very embarrassing to government. The Roman Catholics knew that nothing would be conceded by Wellington and Peel on principle, but that anything might be wrung from them, if, by the concession, they supposed that they thereby gave a longer lease of power to the privileged classes. The army began to discuss the question of religious disability, and a third of the force was alleged to be Roman Catholic. The duke came to the conclusion that to avert civil war, Roman Catholic emancipation must be effected. In his public statements he greatly exaggerated the dangers of withholding the measure; but as neither he nor Peel were supposed at heart to be very earnest, although very illiberal Protestants, the public considered it a new trick to take popular public measures out of the hands of the liberal party, to pass them in forms less in harmony with the principles involved in them, than would have been the case if carried by the Whigs. In February, 1829, the measure of Roman Catholic emancipation was announced in the speech from the throne, and was carried through parliament by all the power which the ministry could command. The high Protestants lost confidence in the duke, and the Earl of Winchelsea impeached his private honour in connection with the events which had transpired. On the 31st of March the duke and the earl met in Battersea Fields to fight a duel. The duke fired and missed; Lord Winchelsea fired in the air, and the affair terminated. Throughout the political transactions of his premiership his grace showed much passion, and a tyranny to his colleagues in office more suitable to the barrack-room than the cabinet. Peel was the abettor of all this, and by many deemed the inventor of it. After conceding such a large measure of religious liberty, his grace seemed to dislike more inveterately than ever all measures of free-trade and parliamentary reform. The French revolution of 1830 excited the whole country, and an agitation for reform of threatening magnitude arose and spread throughout the land. He had the hardihood to attempt prosecutions of the press, although by such means the French king had brought about his dethronement. He defied public feeling, and did so with an air of peremptory authority and insolence offensive to parliament and the people. He became one of the most unpopular men in England. Almost all parties united in deeming him unfit to lead the government of the country in such a crisis. He was hooted by mobs in the streets; the windows of his mansion were broken, and had to be defended by iron casings. A new parliament was elected; a reform was demanded. The duke met the demand by a sturdy defiance. He declared, “that the country already possessed a legislature which answered all the good purposes of legislation, that the system of representation possessed the full and entire confidence of the country, and that he was not only not prepared to bring forward any measure of reform, but would resist such, as long as he held any station in the government of the country.” With those words the career and credit of the duke as a statesman may be said to have closed. A perfect hurricane of rage arose around him through all the land. He was hurled from power, and the Whigs came into office pledged to a Reform Bill, which, after vain and fierce opposition, became the law of the land. King William IV. became alarmed at the rapid progress of reform; he suddenly dismissed the Whigs, and “sent for the duke.” The latter failed again in his discernment of the true slate of public feeling in England. He refused to become premier, advised the king to send for Sir Robert Peel (what the latter had been all along planning and expecting). Sir Robert arrived and formed a ministry, the duke becoming minister of foreign affairs and leader of the government party in the House of Lords. This ministry was speedily swept away by the popular indignation, and the Whigs again returned to power. From that time the duke seems to have made expediency his sole rule of political action; he became heart and soul a Peelite. In 1841 he had an opportunity of upholding Sir Robert Peel in power for some time, and of aiding him in the great work of commercial and economical reform, against which both had all their life protested and straggled. It can hardly be urged in excuse for the duke’s long opposition to commercial reform, that questions of finance and political economy were out of the proper range of his subjects, for he was a first-rate financier, and a successful student of political economy. He is represented to have said of himself that his true genius was the Exchequer rather than the War Office. “At one of the most critical conjunctures of the Peninsular war, he drew up a most able paper on the true principles of Portuguese banking; and at Seringapatam, after very serious evils had been experienced from a long-standing debasement of the coinage, a memorandum was accidentally discovered in the treasury from the pen of Colonel Wellesley, every prediction and observation of which had been exactly verified by events.” His desire to stand by his order, to uphold government by that order, and to maintain its revenues by the protection of territorial produce overpowered alike his sense of justice, and his patriotism.
In 1843, he resumed the office of “commander-in-chief of the land forces,” which he held until his decease. In his management of the army, he displayed the same repugnance to reform as in civil life, and a determination to resist all changes that lessened aristocratic influence in its government, or the promotion of its officers. The liberal views and measures which spontaneously emanated from the Duke of Cambridge, in 1858-9, would have been impossible to the Duke of Wellington, except under such a pressure of popular power as made a concession of some things necessary to preserve others. The improvements which gradually grew up in the condition of the common soldier seldom, almost never, had his approbation, and were generally carried out by successive whig governments in opposition to the commander-in-chief.
On the 10th of April, 1848, when the great Chartist meeting took place near London, the dispositions made by the great duke to put down any attempt at insurrection, excited the admiration of all military men.
At no period in the Duke of Wellington’s history did he so fully enjoy the confidence and respect of his countrymen as when death approached. The mode of his death was such as might be expected at his advanced age. It was easy—as the lamp expires when the oil which fed it becomes exhausted. One of the honours which he bore was that of warden of the Cinque Ports; he was therefore staying at Walmer Castle when his brief but fatal illness occurred. His remains were there placed in a coffin, which the inhabitants and the troops of the surrounding garrisons were permitted to see. On the 10th of November, the body was removed to London, and laid in state at Chelsea Hospital, where a vast concourse of persons were permitted to see it. Thence it was taken to the Horse Guards, whence the funeral procession went forth to St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the dome of which, beside the body of Nelson, it was to be deposited. The funeral was the grandest which ever took place in England, or perhaps in Europe. Military representatives from all the important nations in Europe, except Austria, attended. Vast multitudes of people crowded the thoroughfares along which the procession moved, and of that multitude exceeding great numbers were dressed in deep black. In parliament and throughout the country, demonstrations of respect for the memory of the departed hero were made, and the court went into mourning. Thus closed the life and obsequies of one of the greatest men to whom the British Isles had ever given birth. His grace was a widower at his death. He had married, in 1806, an Irish lady of rank, the Honourable Catherine Pakenham, daughter of the second Baron Longford, and sister to the gallant Generals Pakenham, who distinguished themselves under the command of his grace in the Peninsular. The duchess died in 1831, leaving two sons, the Marquis of Douro, heir to the title, and Lord Charles Wellesley, both military men. Lord Charles Wellesley, from loss of sight, has since been obliged to give up the military profession; and the successor to the great duke, although a man of general talent, and allowed by military men to possess remarkable ability for the profession of arms, has not followed that career, but maintains a high position at court and in public affairs.