“It is a pity,” wrote Moore in his private journal with reference to Wellesley, “that when so much had been thrown into his hands, he had not been allowed to complete the work.” And to Sir Hew Dalrymple he spoke decidedly: “If hostilities recommence, Sir Arthur Wellesley has already done so much that I think it but fair he should have the command of whatever is brilliant in the finishing. I waive all pretensions as senior, for I consider this as his expedition. He ought to have the command of whatever is detached.”
But while Moore thus generously proposed to sacrifice his own claims on behalf of Wellesley, Sir Arthur was no less anxious that Moore’s great gifts should not be lost to his country. The conduct of these two grand men, each to the other, is a fair sight, beside the jealousies which sometimes blemish the bravest characters.
On the 17th of September Wellesley sent a frank soldierly letter to Moore, referring to the interview of the latter with “His Majesty’s Ministers,” and expressing a fear lest Moore’s action might stand in the way of his being raised to the supreme command. Would Sir John Moore be willing to discuss the question with him? “It appears to me,” he wrote, “to be quite impossible we can go on as we are now constituted. The Commander-in-Chief must be changed; and the Country and the Army naturally turn their eyes to you as their Commander.”
This disinterested letter took Moore by surprise. The two had of course met before, perhaps several times; but they had not been intimate, though each had appreciated the other. He at once replied cordially, and the next day the interview took place, Wellesley calling upon Moore on his way home.
The confidential talk which followed was a remarkable one. Two of the greatest men of their age met, each bent upon the good of his country—each willing to sacrifice for the good of the other what might be advantageous for himself. One by birth was Irish, one by birth was Scotch, but both were British—nay, English!—to the backbone. Sir Arthur Wellesley, in age only eight years the younger, was still at the opening of his grand career; Sir John Moore, after thirty years of hard service, was fast nearing the close of his. Sir John’s at this date was a worldwide fame. Sir Arthur, though he had made his mark by a successful campaign in India, was still not very famous beyond a certain circle. But Moore had noted his power.
They went into the matter calmly together—Wellesley’s strongly-outlined eagle face and large Roman nose contrasting with the refined beauty of Moore’s features. In force of character, however, in strength of will, in courage and patriotism, in freedom from all narrowness of party spirit, the two were alike. “Although I hold a high office under Government I am no party man,” Wellesley had declared in that memorable letter to Moore, received only the day before. With Wellesley, as with Moore, private interests went down before National interests, and Duty was a word utterly supreme through life.
Perhaps the main difference between the two lay in the fact that Wellesley lacked that peculiar “strain of sweetness,” that element of womanly tenderness, which made Moore to be so intensely beloved. His was a more homogeneously iron nature; but it was of finely-wrought iron.
The meeting between Lord Castlereagh and Moore, with Moore’s impetuous self-defence, was referred to. Sir John Moore gave full particulars of what had passed, adding frankly:
“I thought it needful to express what I felt under the circumstances. But, having done so, I have felt no more upon the subject.”
Wellesley demurred as to any such need. He feared much that, unless some explanation took place, Sir John’s heat on that occasion might stand in the road of his future usefulness to England. He was perfectly sure that there had been no unkind intentions on the part of the Ministers, since he had often heard them speak with high esteem of Moore. Lord Castlereagh was naturally of a “cautious” temperament, and there might have been some difficultly in giving the chief command to Sir John, until a formal explanation had taken place with the Swedish Court. Then Sir Arthur asked—might he be authorised to say to the Ministers that Sir John was sorry to have been under a misunderstanding, if indeed no slight had been meant by them; and that, having once for all spoken out what he felt, he had now forgotten the matter, and would think no more about it?