An Irish family neither wealthy nor very distinguished, the Wellesleys owed their success to their abilities. The second Lord Mornington, Marquess Wellesley, sprang into fame as a favorite of William Pitt, who showed his power by pushing young men like Richard Wesley and George Canning into positions of immense responsibility. Perhaps the favor shown to the former may in part have had its source in some resemblance of character which caused Pitt to feel a reflection of himself, for Mornington was a scholar and an orator. His Latin verses were an ornament of Eton scholarship; his oratory was classic like his verses; and his manners suited the scholarship of his poetry and the Latinity of his orations. Lord Mountmorris, one of his antagonists in the Irish Parliament of 1783, ridiculed his rhetoric: “If formidable spectres portending the downfall of the Constitution were to appear in this House, I admit that the noble Lord is frightened with becoming dignity. The ancient Roscius or the modern Garrick could not stand with a better grace at the appearance of a spectre.” The orator whose air of dignity Lord Mountmorris thought so studied was then twenty-three years old, and apparently never changed his manner. In the British Parliament, thirteen years afterward, Sheridan described him as presenting the same figure that Mountmorris laughed at. “Exactly two years ago,” said Sheridan in 1796, “I remember to have seen the noble Lord with the same sonorous voice, the same placid countenance, in the same attitude, leaning gracefully upon the table, and giving an account from shreds and patches of Brissot that the French republic would last but a few months longer.” The aristocratic affectations, if they were affectations, of Lord Mornington were conspicuous; but no man could safely laugh at one of the Wellesleys. In 1797 Mr. Pitt suddenly sent this ornament of the peerage to India as governor-general, and the world learned that since the time of Clive no surer or bolder hand had guided the empire of England in the East.
When he took charge of the Indian government, French influence contested his own at more than one court of the powerful native princes, while his resources were neither great nor easily concentrated. During the eight years of his sway he extirpated French influence; crushed the power of Tippoo Sultaun; conquered the empire of Mysore, which had again and again won victories over English armies within sight of Madras; broke up the Mahratta confederacy; and doubled the British territory in India, besides introducing or planning many important civil reforms. He shocked the Court of Directors by arbitrary rule, extravagance in finance, and favoritism toward his younger brothers; but success was the decisive answer to hostile criticism, and even fanatics could hardly affirm that a governor-general, though he might have every virtue, was fit for his place if he refused the services of Arthur Wellesley when they might be had for the asking.
When Lord Wellesley, created an Irish marquess and English baron, returned to England in 1806, he came home with the greatest name in the empire next to that of Pitt.[216] He was asked to join the Portland Administration, but declined. Canning was said to have taken offence at his refusal;[217] but at last in disgust with Perceval, Canning connected himself more closely than ever with the Marquess, doubtless in the hope of forcing Castlereagh out in order to bring Wellesley in.[218] At Canning’s request in April, 1809, the Marquess was appointed to the important and difficult post of Ambassador Extraordinary to the Supreme Junta of Spain, then at Seville; while at the same time his brother Arthur was made general-in-chief in the Peninsula. Lord Wellesley went to Spain with the understanding that he was soon to return and enter the Cabinet.[219] In October he learned that Canning had broken up the Cabinet, and that while Canning himself on one side expected the Wellesleys’ support, Perceval on the other was begging for it, and the Whigs were waiting with open arms to welcome their alliance. Canning’s duel took place Sept. 21, 1809. October 5 Spencer Perceval wrote to Wellesley at Seville, asking him to accept the Foreign Office; while at the same time Canning informed the King that Lord Wellesley would retire from office with himself.
In such a situation the most astute politician could not trust his own judgment. No one could say whether Wellesley’s strength would invigorate the Government, or whether Perceval’s weakness would exhaust Wellesley as it had exhausted Canning. Canning and Wellesley held the same estimate of Perceval. Canning had succeeded only in ruining himself by struggling to rid the Government of that incubus, as he regarded it, and Wellesley had no better right to expect success. On the other hand, if the Marquess should join the Government he might assist his brother Arthur, who needed support at home. Probably this idea turned the scale; at all events Wellesley accepted Perceval’s offer, and gave his Administration a chance of life.
Wellesley could have had no hope of effecting any considerable object except by carrying out Canning’s scheme, which required that Spencer Perceval should be forced from power before the Government could be placed on a strong foundation. His first experiences showed him the difficulties in his way.
December 6, 1809, the Marquess was sworn as Secretary of State. A few days afterward he appointed his brother Henry to the post he had himself vacated, of Envoy to the Spanish Junta at Seville. The favoritism was unfortunate, but Wellesley troubled himself little about odium; his single thought was to support his “brother Arthur,” while England was far from showing equal zeal in Arthur’s support. In spite of the success at Talavera, Lord Wellington had been obliged to retreat into Portugal; the Spanish army led by inferior generals ventured to march on Madrid, and November 19 was annihilated by the French at Ocaña, some fifty miles south of that city, leaving the whole south and east of Spain unprotected. The French were certain to reoccupy Seville if not to attack Cadiz. Affairs in the Peninsula were at least as unpromising as they had ever been, and Englishmen might be excused for doubting the policy of wasting British resources in fretting one extremity of Napoleon’s enormous bulk.
While the Wellesley interest concentrated on the Peninsula, the Foreign Office was interested in wider fields. The new secretary was expected to devise some system of trade with the Spanish-American colonies which should meet approval from the Junta, jealous with good reason of any foreign interference with Mexico and Peru; but above all he was required to take in hand the quarrel with the United States, and if possible to retrieve the mistakes of Canning. He had been only a few weeks in office when news arrived that President Madison refused to hold further relations with F. J. Jackson, the British minister, and that Madison and Jackson were only agreed in each requiring the punishment of the other. Pinkney soon appeared at the Foreign office with a request for Jackson’s recall.
Lord Wellesley was in character to the full as arbitrary as George Canning. Seven years of imperial power in India had trained him in habits of autocratic authority; but he was a man of breeding, courteous, dignified, and considerate of others’ dignity. In India he had shown what Canning thought himself to possess,—the hand of iron in the velvet glove. Without a tinge of Canning’s besetting vice, the passion to be clever, Wellesley never fell into the fault of putting sarcasms or epigrams into his state papers. So little offensive was he in manner, that although he brought about a war between England and the United States no American held him as an enemy, or retained so much ill-feeling toward him as to make even his name familiar to American ears. In truth his subordinate position in the Government prevented the exercise of his powers, and left him no opportunity to develop the force of that character which had crushed Tippoo Sultaun and tamed the Mahrattas. His colleagues allowed him to show only the weaknesses of a strong nature, which may have been increased to vices by the exhaustion of eight years’ severe labor in an Indian climate. What he might have done had he taken Perceval’s place no one can say; what he did or failed to do is more easily told.
When Pinkney came to explain the President’s action and wishes in regard to Jackson, Wellesley, in a manner that seemed to the American minister both frank and friendly, showed only the wish to conciliate. In a short time Pinkney became so intimate with the new Foreign Secretary as to excite comment. Nothing could be more encouraging than his reports to the President of the change in disposition which had come over the Foreign Office. Jan. 2, 1810, Pinkney, in a long note, explained to Wellesley the President’s reasons for breaking off relations with Jackson.[220] His tone was conciliatory, professing only the wish for friendly accommodation; and Wellesley on his side not only received the note without objection, but encouraged the hope that the President’s wishes would be gratified. Pinkney reported that in conversation Lord Wellesley had promised at once to send out a new envoy of diplomatic rank; to lose no time in settling the “Chesapeake” affair; and afterward to take up the commercial questions which had made the substance of Monroe’s treaty three years before. The cordiality of these promises satisfied Pinkney that they were not meant to deceive. If any one was deceived, the victim was not Pinkney but Wellesley himself, who overrated his own power and underrated the inert resistance of Spencer Perceval and the army of selfish interests at his back. Even Jackson’s affair was not easily managed. Jackson could not be disavowed, for he had done nothing more than his orders required him to do; nor could a new minister be appointed until the year elapsed which Canning promised for the term of Jackson’s mission. Between Canning on one side and Perceval on the other, Wellesley found himself unable to act, and resorted to delays.
Not until March 14 did Pinkney receive the promised reply[221] to his note of January 2; and this reply was not all that Wellesley had given him to expect. Compared with Canning’s notes, Wellesley’s letter might be called affectionate; but it was less definite than Pinkney would have liked. His Majesty, said Wellesley, regretted that the President should have interrupted communications before his Majesty could manifest his invariable disposition to maintain the relations of amity with the United States. Mr. Jackson had most positively assured his Government that it was not his purpose to give offence by anything he said or did; in such cases the usual course would have been to convey a formal complaint, which would have prevented the inconvenience of a suspension of relations. Yet his Majesty, always disposed to pay the utmost attention to the wishes and sentiments of States in amity with him, had directed the return of Mr. Jackson, though without marking his conduct with any expression of displeasure, inasmuch as Mr. Jackson’s “integrity, zeal, and ability have long been distinguished in his Majesty’s service,” and he seemed to have committed no intentional offence on the present occasion. Jackson was ordered to deliver his charge into the hands of a properly qualified person, while his Majesty “would receive, with sentiments of undiminished amity and good-will, any communication which the Government of the United States may deem beneficial to the mutual interests of both countries.”