Although Wellesley was by no means of a pugnacious disposition, a second fight, in which he was not victorious, took place during a holiday spent at the Welsh home of his maternal grandfather, Lord Dungannon. His opponent was a young blacksmith, named Hughes, who lived to hear of the mighty exploits of the Iron Duke. He was never tired of telling how he once conquered the vanquisher of Napoleon. It was his one title to fame.
Arthur and the Marquis de Pignerol
George W. Joy
After leaving Eton, Wellesley was taken to Brussels in 1784 by his mother, who found the many attractions of London society a heavy tax on a slender purse, for she had removed to the Metropolis on the death of her husband. As her son seemed to take little or no interest in anything but the army, and as that service was then considered a desirable alternative to the Church for the fool of the family, Lady Mornington accepted the offer of some friends to provide for his military education. Whatever ability her fourth son displayed seems to have been less obvious to her than to others, as frequently happens. “They are all,” she writes with reference to her family, “I think, endowed with excellent abilities except Arthur, and he would probably not be wanting, if only there was more energy in his nature; but he is so wanting in this respect, that I really do not know what to do with him.” However, the youth whom she described as being “food for powder and nothing more” was packed across the frontier to Angers. She herself returned to London in 1785, Wellesley proceeding to the quaint old town associated with King John of England. Here he had his first encounter with the French, and there is a celebrated picture showing him in conversation with the Marquis of Pignerol.
Pignerol, who presided over an Academy, not exclusively devoted to the training of would-be soldiers as some writers have assumed, was an engineer officer, and did his best to initiate the Irish lad into some of the mysteries of the science of war. As his pupil only remained at Angers for about twelve months, he cannot have learned more than the rudiments, but he assimilated French with comparative ease. Unlike Napoleon, who was never happier than when he was poring over military books at Brienne, Wellesley enjoyed much good society. He made the acquaintance of the Duc de Brissac, who seems to have been a delightful foster-father of the scholars, for he frequently entertained them at his château. The Duc de Praslin, the Abbé Siéyès, later one of the French Consuls, D’Archambault, Talleyrand’s brother, Jaucourt, who afterwards became Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Louis XVIII, were all on his visiting list. It is quite probable that among his schoolmates was Chateaubriand, destined to fill an honoured place in the world of letters, but of this, said the Duke, he was not absolutely certain.
The British army was not then the skilfully organised fighting-machine it has since become. Entrance into its ranks as an officer was not difficult, provided one had financial support and influence. This explains the rapid promotion of Wellesley. At the age of seventeen he began his military career as an ensign in a Foot regiment, his gazette being dated the 7th March 1787. Nine months later he was promoted lieutenant into the 76th. By successive steps he rose to be captain (1791), major (1793), lieutenant-colonel (1793), and colonel (1796). A colonel at twenty-seven is beyond the dreams of mortal men to-day, and this advancement contrasts oddly with the slow progress of Nelson, Wellesley’s great naval contemporary, who had to depend upon his own unaided merits for promotion. In 1793, six years following his first appointment, he was placed in command of the 33rd Foot, after having experience of the cavalry by serving in both the 12th and 18th Light Dragoons.
A little influence went a long way in those casual times; there was nothing so valuable as “a friend at court.” Unlike many aristocratic nobodies who secured high position, Wellesley afterwards proved his worth, but he scarcely would have ascended the military ladder with such astonishing quickness had not his brother Richard held office under the younger Pitt. Lord Westmorland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, also took a fancy to him and made him one of his aides-de-camp.
In 1790, when he was still in his twenty-first year, he entered the Irish House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Trim, County Meath, a “pocket borough” of the Wellesley family. We are told by Sir Jonah Barrington, who made his acquaintance some three years later, that the young soldier “was then ruddy-faced and juvenile in appearance, and popular enough among the young men of his age and station. His address was unpolished; he occasionally spoke in Parliament, but not successfully, and never on important subjects; and evinced no promise of that unparalleled celebrity and splendour which he has since reached, and whereto intrepidity and decision, good luck, and great military science have justly combined to elevate him.” The same authority then proceeds to introduce us to Lord Castlereagh, and adds: “At the period to which I allude, I feel confident nobody could have predicted that one of those young gentlemen would become the most celebrated English general of his era, and the other one of the most mischievous statesmen and unfortunate ministers that has ever appeared in modern Europe.[2] However, it is observable that to the personal intimacy and reciprocal friendship of those two individuals they mutually owed the extent of their respective elevation and celebrity: Sir Arthur Wellesley never would have had the chief command in Spain but for the ministerial manœuvring and aid of Lord Castlereagh; and Lord Castlereagh never could have stood his ground as a minister, but for Lord Wellington’s successes.”
Another contemporary tells quite a different story of Wellesley’s ability, and as he also heard him in 1793 it is printed here in order that the reader may not be prejudiced by Barrington’s opinion. So much is determined by the point-of-view of the witness. The occasion was a debate on the perennial question of the Roman Catholics. Captain Wellesley’s remarks, we are told, “were terse and pertinent, his delivery fluent, and his manner unembarrassed.” Gleig, who was intimately acquainted with the Duke, says that he “seems to have spoken but rarely, and never at any length. His votes were of course given in support of the party to which he belonged, but otherwise he entered very little into the business of the House.” He mentions but one incident connected with this period, namely, Wellesley’s attachment to the Hon. Catherine Pakenham, an acknowledged Society beauty and a daughter of Baron Longford. His Lordship, possessing a keen eye for the practical affairs of life, objected to the match on the score of lack of money, but there is little doubt that the couple came to a mutual understanding.