Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a Century

by Duke of Arthur Wellesley Wellington

The immediate descendants of Sir Henry Colley were more or less distinguished. His great-great grand-daughter, Elizabeth, married into the family of the Westleys (afterwards Wellesleys) of Dangan, in the county of Meath. This family also was of English extraction, having originally come from Sussex. Richard Colley, the nephew of the Elizabeth abovementioned, was adopted by Garret Wellesley, whose name and estates he took in the year 1728, by patent from the Herald's office. He was auditor and registrar of the Royal Hospital of Kilmainham, and a Chamberlain of the Court of Exchequer. He sat in parliament several years for Carysford, and was, in 1747 raised to the peerage by George II., being created Baron Mornington. His son, Garret, was, in 1760, created Viscount Wellesley and Earl of Mornington. He married, on the 6th February, 1759, Anne, eldest daughter of the Right Honourable Arthur Hill, Viscount Dungannon, by whom he had issue, Richard the late Marquis Wellesley, Arthur Gerald, who died in infancy, William Wellesley Pole, Baron Maryborough, Arthur Duke of Wellington, Gerald Valerian, D.D., Sir Henry, G.C.B., Francis Seymour, Anne, and Mary Elizabeth.

The Earl of Mornington, who was chiefly remarkable for his strong passion for music, in which science he acquired no slight celebrity as a composer, died in 1781, leaving his property very much encumbered. Its management was entrusted to Lady Mornington, who appears, by universal assent, to have been one of those remarkable women to whose care the world is indebted, so much more than it conceives or will admit, for its great men. Although it may have been upon severer models, and by the lessons of more pretending teachers, that the Marquis Wellesley was formed into the vigorous ruler, and the wise, far-seeing statesman; or if his scarcely more illustrious brother must, from other sources, have imbibed that stern unswerving spirit which, in his after career, insured truth to his views and certainty to his enterprises, yet one can scarcely allow a doubt that it is to the direction given by their admirable mother to the minds of these two great men, while still in the pliant season of youth, that we owe that high appreciation of truth and honour, and that sense of the identity of virtue and duty, which, while their wisdom and prowess were spreading our military fame, and extending the sphere of our civilising influence, enabled them also, by the exaltation of our national character, to secure for their country the respect of all the world.

One of the first fruits of early lessons or of later reflection upon the mind of the young Earl of Mornington was, that he took upon himself the payment of his father's debts, an act entirely voluntary on his part.

Of Lord Mornington, afterwards the celebrated Marquis Wellesley, it is unnecessary to say more in this place than that he was in the year 1797 appointed to the Governor-Generalship of India, in which high office he was enabled to develop, without the suspicion of undue preference, the peculiar talents of his younger brother—talents which his discriminating mind would probably have discovered even without the assistance of such close proximity.

To return to the immediate subject of these Memoirs:—His education commenced at Eton, from whence he went to the military academy at Angers, in the department of the Maine and Loire, there being at that period no institution of the kind in this country.

On his return from the Continent, young Wellesley received (on the 7th of March, 1787), an ensigncy in the 41st regiment, he being then in his eighteenth year. He became lieutenant on the 25th of December in the same year; captain, on the 30th of June, 1791; major, on the 30th of April, 1798; and lieut.-colonel on the 30th of September following. These promotions were chiefly by purchase, and the lieut.-colonelcy (of the 33rd) was bought for him by his brother. He was returned to the Irish parliament at the general election of 1790, for Trim, a borough belonging to his brother.

Brilliant as was the reputation which, within a very few years, he acquired as a soldier and a politician in the East, it will not excite surprise to hear that his parliamentary displays did not in his early life excite much attention. A friend of the writer of this memoir, a gentleman who was in the habit of being present, almost daily, in the Irish House of Commons, and who took critical notice of the remarkable men of his time, states that the Duke never made any striking impression as a speaker; indeed; there was nothing whatever to distinguish him from the herd of young parliamentary nominees, except a certain simple, straightforward, firm, though unassuming statement of his opinions; and even this took place but seldom. The recollection of this gentleman confirms the account of Sir Jonah Barrington, that—"His address was unpolished; he spoke occasionally, and never with success; and evinced no promise of that unparalleled celebrity which he reached afterwards."

The following anecdote is not inconsistent with that reputation for inflexible honour which, in successive eras of his life, procured for the Duke of Wellington the confidence of the Indian government, of the British army, and ultimately of the whole English nation. It is taken from the excellent detailed account of the Duke's military career, recently published by Mr. Maxwell:—

"The appointment of Captain Wellesley to the staff of the Earl of Westmorland, had placed him in the household of the viceroy, and as aid-de-camp required his constant attendance at the castle. The Irish court at that period was celebrated alike for its hospitality, its magnificence, and its dissipation. The princely display of the lords lieutenant of those days entailed a heavy expenditure upon the numerous attachés of the court, and too frequently plunged young men of high family and limited fortunes into very distressing embarrassments. Captain Wellesley's patrimony was small, his staff appointment more fashionable than lucrative, and it is not surprising that soon after he had come of age he found himself involved in pecuniary difficulties. At the time he lodged in the house of an opulent bootmaker, who resided on Lower Ormand Quay. The worthy tradesman discovered, accidently, that his young inmate was suffering annoyance from his inability to discharge a pressing demand. He waited on Lieutenant Wellesley, told him that he was apprised of his embarrassments, mentioned that he had money unemployed, and offered a loan, which was accepted. The obligation was soon afterwards duly repaid; and the young aid-de-camp was enabled in a few years to present his humble friend to an honourable and lucrative situation. Nor did death cancel the obligation; the Duke's patronage, after his parent's death, was extended to the son of his early friend, for whom he obtained a valuable appointment."

To enter into any detailed account of the military career of the Duke of Wellington, would be wholly beyond the scope of a work devoted more especially to his Grace's character and services as a civilian; but were it not so, it would be unnecessary, after the many able biographies which have appeared since the publication of the dispatches by Lieut.-Colonel Gurwood. The following is, therefore only a short summary of the Duke's proceedings from 1794, when he first entered on active service, to 1815, when his functions as a military commander in the field finally ceased.