[368] The feelings, expressed more or less clearly in a hundred memoirs, may be summed up in a paragraph by Wm. Grattan of the 88th. ‘In his parting General Order to the Peninsular army he told us that he would never cease to feel the warmest interest for our welfare and honour. How this promise was kept every one knows. That the Duke of Wellington is one of the most remarkable (perhaps the greatest) man of the present age, few will deny. But that he neglected the interests and feelings of his Peninsular army, as a body, is beyond all question. And were he in his grave to-morrow, hundreds of voices that now are silent would echo what I write’ (p. 332).
[369] Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 14. [Nov. 4, 1831.]
[370] It is often forgotten that there was a strong religious element in the rank and file of the Peninsular army. In a letter from Cartaxo [Feb. 3, 1811], Wellington mentions, with no great pleasure, the fact that there were three separate Methodist meetings in the Guards’ brigade alone, and that in many other regiments there were officers who were accustomed to preach and pray with their men. For the spiritual experiences of a sergeant in the agonies of conversion, the reader may consult the diary of Surtees of the 95th during the year 1812.
[371] Robert Craufurd and Hill were perhaps the only exceptions.
[372] Take, for example, his behaviour to Sir James MacGrigor, perhaps the most successful of his chiefs of departments. MacGrigor, being at Salamanca, while Wellesley was at Madrid [Aug. 1812], ordered on his own authority the bringing up of stores for the mass of wounded left behind there after the battle. He then came to bring his report to Madrid. ‘Lord Wellington was sitting to a Spanish painter [Goya] for his portrait when I arrived, and asked me to sit down and give him a detail as to the state of the wounded at Salamanca. When I came to inform him that for their relief I had ordered up purveying and commissariat officers, he started up, and in a violent manner reprobated what I had done. His Lordship was in a passion, and the Spanish artist, ignorant of the English language, looked aghast, and at a loss to know what I had done to enrage him so much. “I shall be glad to know,” he asked, “who is to command the army, I or you? I establish one route, one line of communications for the army; you establish another, and order up supplies by it. As long as you live, sir, never do that again; never do anything without my orders.” I pleaded that there was no time to consult him, and that I had to save lives. He peremptorily desired me “never again to act without his orders.” ... A month later I was able to say to him, “My Lord, recollect how you blamed me at Madrid for the steps which I took on coming up to the army, when I could not consult your Lordship, and acted for myself. Now, if I had not, what would the consequences have been?” He answered, “It is all right as has turned out; but I recommend you still to have my orders for what you do.” This was a singular feature in the character of Lord Wellington.’ MacGrigor’s Autobiography, pp. 302-3 and 311.
[373] Salisbury MSS., 1835. Quoted in Sir Herbert Maxwell’s Wellington, ii. 194.
[374] Take, as a rare instance of recognition of this fact, his remark in 1828 that ‘When the Duke of Newcastle addressed to me a letter on the subject of forming an Administration, I treated him with contempt. No man likes to be treated with contempt. I was wrong.’ Ibid. ii. 213.
[375] For a record of such an interview by an eye-witness see Gronow’s Reminiscences, p. 66.
[376] Sir James MacGrigor’s Memoirs, pp. 304-5.
[377] He honourably mentioned Murray in his Oporto dispatch, and Tripp in his Waterloo dispatch! Both had behaved abominably.