They had much in common. Manly in bearing, persistent of purpose, and prompt in decision, they were also richly dowered with social gifts. Like Pitt, Mornington had classical attainments and literary gifts of no mean order; and his high spirits and powers of repartee must have brought new energy to the jaded statesman. Entering Parliament as member for Windsor, he found his duties far from congenial. On some occasions nervousness marred the effect of his speeches; and his constituents involved him in so much expense and worry as to prompt a request, in the autumn of 1794, for the intervention of Pitt, seeing that his rival, Isherwood, had "the means of supplying the rapacity even of the electors of Windsor." On 4th October he thanked Pitt for relieving him from further obligations to "the worthy electors of that loyal borough"; but he continued for a time to sit in Parliament. Meanwhile his fine presence and lively converse brought him into favour with the Prince of Wales. On 4th August 1793, writing at Brighthelmstone, he heartily congratulated Pitt on the surrender of Valenciennes, which sanguine persons hoped might hasten the end of the war. But, he added, "I own my most sanguine expectations cannot reach the notion of our being able to bring down the power of France in one campaign to the level to which I think it must be reduced for our safety and for that of the rest of the world. H.R.H. the Prince of Wales has been pleased to be most gracious to me.... I suppose you have heard of his dinner on the capture of Valenciennes. We sat from five till half-past ten, and many were very drunk, particularly H.R.H. He really did the honours most admirably...." In the next letter, of the early part of August 1796, Mornington sends a quatrain of Latin Elegiacs which he had composed at Dundas's house, on the exploits of Wurmser in relieving Mantua, of Davidovitch at Roveredo, and Quosdanovitch at Brescia (not Verona), which seemed to presage the ruin of Bonaparte.
Mantua Vurmisero gaudet, Rovereda Davido,
Et Verona tibi, Quosdanovice, patet.
Vae mihi (raptor ait Gallus) ne forte per Alpes
Heu! Bona pars in rem cogar abire malam.[617]
For some time Mornington had felt the charm of Indian history; and the blend of energy with romance in his being may have prompted Pitt's selection of him as Viceroy in 1797. After a most tedious voyage he reached the Hooghly in time to foil the blow which Tippoo Sahib, Bonaparte's prospective ally, aimed at Madras. In his letter to Pitt, written there on 20th April 1799, he expressed a hope of the capture of Seringapatam, and continues thus: "I assure you that my nerves are much strengthened by all the exertions which I have been obliged to make, and in this land of indolence I pass for rather an active, stout, hardy fellow and can now fast till four o'clock (save only a bit of biscuit and a glass of port). I am happy to hear that you are better than you have ever been in your life. There is no comfort in mine but the distant hope of seeing you all again safe, well, and quizzing in England. I have only one request to make to you if you do not mean to abridge either my doleful days or the period of my Government—do not suffer that cantancerous [sic] fellow, Sir J[ames] Craig, to be made commander-in-chief in Bengal. Send me a sober discreet decent man, but do not allow the etiquette of throwing inkstands to be revived at the Council Board."[618]
On 12th May, after announcing to Pitt the capture of Seringapatam, Mornington adds: "If Buonaparte should now chuse to visit Malabar, I think he will find supper prepared for him before he has reached Calcutta." Reviewing the events of his Viceroyalty he writes on 8th August: "I suppose you will either hang me or magnificently honour me for my deeds (mine they are, be they good or bad). In either case I shall be gratified; for an English gallows is better than an Indian throne; but these words must be buried in your own breast; for here I pretend to be very happy and humble; although I am as proud as the D. and as wretched as his dam. I think you will enjoy 'Le Citoïen Tipou' and 'Citoïen Sultan' in the papers found at Seringapatam. I admire your conduct with respect to the Union [with Ireland]. I hope you will persevere, but I trust you will not trust Ireland to my old friend Hobart. He used to be a good humoured fellow; but from what I have heard of his reign here, he is utterly unfit to govern anywhere."[619]
Pitt did not receive this letter by 6th November, when he informed Wellesley that the King, as a mark of high approbation, conferred on him the title the Marquis Wellesley, suitable arrangements being also in contemplation for his family. An Irish marquisate was far from the magnificent reward which the Viceroy desired; and on 28th April 1800 he expressed his anguish of mind at receiving only an Irish and pinchbeck reward for exploits neither Irish nor pinchbeck. Nevertheless, while requesting a speedy recall so that he might hide his chagrin in retirement, he uttered no vindictive word against Pitt. Despite its morbid expressions, the letter is that of a friend to a friend. On 27th September Pitt wrote in reply one of the longest of his private letters. With equal tact and frankness he reviewed the whole question, proving that Wellesley's services were not undervalued, that the bestowal of an English marquisate would have been an advance of four steps in the peerage for what was after all a short Viceroyalty; and that the present honour equalled that conferred on Cornwallis at the end of his term. The question was whether Wellesley should receive an English earldom or an Irish marquisate; and the latter was deemed preferable. Further, if the notion prevailed at Calcutta that Wellesley had been slighted, it might be due to a suspicion that he himself harboured it. Pitt then begged Wellesley to regard this frankness as the best proof of real friendship.[620]
Wellesley showed his good sense by acquiescing, and their letters though rare, became thoroughly cordial. Writing at Patna on 6th October 1801, he gently reproached Pitt for his long silence, especially for not explaining the reason of his resignation; he also expressed the hope that he approved his remaining at Calcutta until a successor was appointed. He added that his state progress up the Ganges to Patna had been favoured by an easterly gale of unusual strength which the natives ascribed either to his happy star or to an Order in Council. As for his health, it was better than in "the reeking House of Commons." Again at the beginning of 1804 he expressed regret that Pitt had neither written nor vouchsafed any sign of approbation at recent events, including the victory of Assaye, which assured British ascendancy in the East.
At last, on 30th August 1804, three months after resuming office, Pitt apologized for his neglect on the ground of excess of work in preparing to meet a French invasion, in which he had so far succeeded as to hope that the attempt might be made. At that time he expected Wellesley to come home in order to escape the petty cabals of the Company's Directors; but he left the decision entirely to him. Pitt's next letter, at Christmastide, breathes a profound hope for Wellesley's speedy arrival as a means of lightening the then heavy burden of political life. Wellesley, however, on 25th March 1805, announced his chivalrous resolve to remain in India another season owing to financial troubles and disputes with the Company. To Dundas, in May 1805, he wrote: "I imagined myself to be one of the best friends of the Company, but I hear that I am a traitor, and a conspirator, and an interloper. Time discovers truth, and I must leave the Honourable Courts' opinions to that test."[621] In August, after transferring his duties to Cornwallis, he set sail for England, and landed in time to have a few last words with Pitt. The interview must have been deeply affecting. At its conclusion Pitt fainted away. Of all the estimates of Pitt none breathes deeper devotion than that of Wellesley. Was it not because he at last saw the pettiness of his own pride and petulance when contrasted with the self-abnegation of him who was truly the Great Commoner? And did not even his meteoric career in the East pale before the full-orbed splendour of the quarter of a century of achievement which made up the public life of Pitt?
The other enthusiastic friend was typically Irish in temperament. Celtic in vivacity and charm, feminine in sensitiveness, Canning was dowered with virile persistence and pugnacity. In histrionic and versifying power he rivalled his countryman, Sheridan, who never forgave him for deserting the Whigs and going over to Pitt. The loss was indeed serious; for the young orator was far more than a frondeur. As editor of the "Anti-Jacobin," conjointly with Hookham Frere, he covered with ridicule the detractors of their country, and helped on the revival of national spirit which began in 1798. But he also possessed great administrative talents, displaying as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs an insight into character in which his chief, Grenville, was signally lacking. Canning's letters to Pitt on the negotiation at Lille in 1797 show signs of those inductive powers which appear at their zenith in his brilliantly correct inference ten years later that the Danish fleet must be snatched from the clutch of Napoleon.
The statuesque calm of Pitt's personality charmed and overawed this impressionable Irishman from the time of their first interview in the summer of 1792. Always versatile and sometimes shifty, he seems instinctively to have felt in him the needed counterpart. As the Czar Alexander leaned on the rock-like Stein in the crisis of 1812, so Canning gained strength and confidence from reliance on Pitt. He on his side took a keen interest in his disciple, discerning in him the propagator of the Pitt doctrine and tradition. At times the fostering care became fatherly. A case in point was Canning's marriage with a wealthy Scottish heiress (July 1800). Pitt regarded this event as essential to his success as the future leader of the party. Indeed, so absorbed was he in his own thoughts during the ride to the church as not to notice a pert remark of Canning's friend, Hookham Frere. The clergyman, Frere, and he were in a coach driving along Swallow Street towards Brook Street when a carter who saw them called out: "What! Billy Pitt! and with a parson too!" Thereupon Frere burst out with the daring jest, "He thinks you are going to Tyburn to be hanged privately!" But Pitt was too pre-occupied to notice the gibe. Again, after the ceremony, in the vestry Pitt was so nervous as to be unable to sign as a witness, and Canning had to whisper to Frere to sign without waiting for him.[622] They ascribed his strange inaction to extreme regard for Canning. But surely another explanation is more natural. How could a man of keenly affectionate nature share in that ceremony without feeling deeply his own lonely lot? Three and a half years ago poverty and debt had stepped in to part him and Eleanor Eden. Was it not the wraith of his buried love which now hovered before him, blotting out the sight of the carter, deafening his ears to the jest, and palsying his hand?