Chapter II: Part 2

The Duke, however, did not interpose to prevent another act, which was one of real justice, the restoration to the several nations of the various works of art of which they had been plundered by the French. It was in answer to complaints of his conduct in this respect that the Duke wrote his letter to Castlereagh, in which he said--"It is to be wished, as well for the happiness of France as of the world, that if the French people are not already convinced that Europe is too strong for them, they may be made to feel that, however extensive for a time their temporary and partial advantages over one or more of the powers of Europe may be, the day of retribution must at length come. According to my feelings, then, it would not only be unjust in the sovereigns to gratify the French people, but the sacrifice they would make would be impolitic, as it would deprive them of the opportunity of giving the French nation a _great moral lesson_."

The thanks of both houses were voted to the Duke for the battle of Waterloo, and an additional grant of 200,000 l.

From the year 1815 until 1823 the Duke of Wellington's name rarely appears in connexion with any public transactions, with the exception that in December, 1818, he was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance, an office which he continued to fill for some years.

In 1819 he made one speech in parliament in which his declared his belief that Roman Catholic Emancipation was impossible, unless there could be a proper security for the Protestant religion, which he doubted.

In the year 1823, on the appointment of Mr. Canning to be Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Duke of Wellington was named as the Plenipotentiary of the King of Great Britain at the Congress of Verona. It was supposed that the subject matter of the discussions of the sovereigns at that congress would be the relations of Russia and Turkey. On the Duke's arrival at Paris, however, he found that Spain would form the main subject. He wrote back for fresh instructions, and Mr. Canning's answer distinctly stated that should France attempt to interfere in Spain either by force or by menace, he was to instruct the Duke "frankly and peremptorily to declare, that to any such interference, come what may, his majesty will not be a party."

The words "frankly and peremptorily" could not have been better chosen, or more agreeable to the character of the Duke. He stuck simply and stedfastly to his text throughout the negotiations, and when at last, in consequence of the state of affairs in Spain, the three great powers agreed to withdraw their ministers from Madrid, the Duke told them he should not withdraw ours but leave him there in the hope of allaying the irritation which the measures of the others were calculated to produce.

The Duke returned to Parts in December, and found the French not indisposed to some arrangement. When it subsequently became necessary to send a special communication to the Spanish government, a mark of respect was paid by Mr. Canning to the Duke of Wellington, more gratifying perhaps to him than his titles or honours. The desire of the British Government was to attach a special character of friendliness to this communication, and for that purpose the Duke of Wellington was requested to make it. This course was taken because it was believed that the private opinions of a man who had conferred such distinguished benefits on Spain, and who had been on terms of personal intercourse and friendship with many of the leading men, would be listened to with more deference than even an official communication. It is unnecessary to pursue this subject farther, as the Duke of Wellington's connexion with it ceased; except that he gave, in the House of Lords, on the 24th of April, a full explanation of his share in the proceedings.

In 1826, the Duke having been appointed ambassador to St. Petersburgh, on the anniversary of the entrance of the allied army into Paris under his command, the Emperor Nicholas addressed a letter to him, in which he told him that in order to testify to him his particular esteem for his great qualities and for the distinguished services he had rendered to the whole of Europe, he had given orders that the Smolensko regiment of infantry, formed by Peter the Great, and one of the most distinguished of his army, which was formerly under the Duke's command in France, should thenceforward be called the Duke of Wellington's regiment.

In 1827, on the death of the Duke of York, the public mind pointed to the Duke of Wellington as the fit successor of his royal highness in the important post of Commander-in-Chief, and he was immediately appointed. The Duke held this office until the appointment of Mr. Canning to be Prime Minister, when he resigned it, and also the Master-Generalship of the Ordnance.

The circumstances attending this resignation must of course hold a prominent place in any memoir of the Duke. But there were personal matters mixed up in the affair, which make it necessary to enter into it at some length, for the better understanding of his Grace's character.

On the death of the Earl of Liverpool, in the beginning of the year 1827, the king called on Mr. Canning to form an administration. As Mr. Canning had all along advocated Roman Catholic Emancipation, and as the cabinet of Lord Liverpool had firmly opposed that measure, it became a question how far the premiership of Mr. Canning would compromise the position of those who had hitherto acted with him in the cabinet of Lord Liverpool. The question very soon received a practical solution, by the simultaneous (though not concerted) resignation of six of the most influential members of the government, including the Duke of Wellington.

The political friends of Mr. Canning, and those of his opponents with whom he was agreed on the Roman Catholic question, concurred in representing this act of the seceding ministers as a cabal against Mr. Canning; and the Duke of Wellington, more especially, was made the subject of most unsparing abuse. The ground of this was that he had not contented himself with resigning the office he held directly under the government, but had also resigned the command of the army, an office unconnected with politics. This was supposed to indicate some special determination to crush Mr. Canning.

Now with regard to the motives of the Duke on this occasion all men will form their own opinion, not so much with reference to facts, as to their political feelings. It may however be fairly laid down as a principle that where admitted facts sufficiently supply an explanation of a man's conduct, all reference to motives are unnecessary; and the more so because in all cases, however strong suspicion or presumptive evidence may be, the truth with regard to a man's motives must ever remain locked in his own breast. The open, manly and fearless character of the Duke would however, except in the heated imagination of partisans, almost preclude suspicion in the first instance.

But let us turn to the facts, as stated in the house of lords on the 2nd of May, when the peers met after the Easter recess. On the 10th of April Mr. Canning wrote to the Duke of Wellington the following letter:--

_To his Grace the Duke of Wellington._

Foreign Office, April 10, 6 P.M., 1827.

My dear Duke of Wellington,--The king has, at
an audience from which I have just returned, been
graciously pleased to signify to me his majesty's commands,
to lay before his majesty, with as little loss as
time as possible, a plan of arrangements for the re-construction of
the administration. In executing these commands it will be as much my
own wish, as it is my duty to his majesty, to adhere to the principles
upon which Lord Liverpool's government has so long acted together. I
need not add how essentially the accomplishment must depend upon your
Grace's continuing a member of the cabinet.

Ever, my dear Duke of Wellington, your Grace's sincere and faithful
servant,

GEORGE CANNING.

To this the Duke of Wellington replied in a characteristic way:--

_To the Right Hon. George Canning._

London, April 10, 1827.

My dear Mr. Canning,--I have received your letter of
this evening, informing me that the king had desired
you to lay before his majesty a plan for the re-construction
of the administration; and that, in executing
these commands, it was your wish to adhere to the
principles on which Lord Liverpool's government had
so long acted together. I anxiously desire to be able
to serve his majesty, as I have done hitherto in his
cabinet, with the same colleagues. But before I can
give an answer to your obliging proposition, I should
wish to know who the person is you intend to propose
to his majesty as the head of the government?

Ever, my dear Mr. Canning, yours most sincerely,

WELLINGTON.

On the next day came the following from Mr. Canning:--

_To his Grace the Duke of Wellington._

Foreign Office, April 11, 1897.

My dear Duke of Wellington,--I believed it to be
so generally understood, that the king usually intrusts
the formation of an administration to the individual
whom it is his majesty's gracious intention to place at
the head of it; that it did not occur to me, when I
communicated to your Grace yesterday the commands
which I had just received from his majesty, to add, that,
in the present instance, his majesty does not intend to
depart from the usual course of proceeding on such
occasions. I am sorry to have delayed some hours this
answer to your Grace's letter; but from the nature of
the subject, I did not like to forward it without having
previously submitted it (together with your Grace's
letter) to his Majesty.

Ever, my dear Duke of Wellington, your Grace's
sincere and faithful servant,

GEORGE CANNING.

And finally, on the evening of the same day, the Duke wrote thus to Mr. Canning.--

London, April 11, 1837.

My dear Mr. Canning,--I have received your letter
of this day, and I did not understand the one of yesterday
evening as you explained it to me. I understood
from yourself that you had in contemplation another
arrangement, and I do not believe that the practice to
which you refer has been so invariable as to enable me to affix a
meaning to your letter which its words did not, in my opinion, convey. I
trust that you will have experienced no inconvenience from the delay of
this answer, which I assure you has been occasioned by my desire to
discover a mode by which I could continue united with my recent
colleagues.--I sincerely wish that I could bring my mind to the
conclusion that, with the best intentions on your part, your government
could be conducted practically on the principles of that of Lord
Liverpool; that it would be generally so considered; or that it would be
adequate to meet our difficulties, in a manner satisfactory to the king,
or conducive to the interests of the country. As, however, I am
convinced that these principles must be abandoned eventually, that all
our measures would be viewed with suspicion by the usual supporters of
the government; that I could do no good in the cabinet; and that at last
I should be obliged to separate myself from it, at the moment at which
such separation would be more inconvenient to the king's service than it
can be at present, I must beg you to request his majesty to excuse me
from belonging to his councils. Ever, my dear Mr. Canning, yours most
sincerely,

WELLINGTON.

This closed the correspondence; and it is needless to add that the Duke continued to hold aloof from the new administration.

The Duke's explanation in the House of Lords related to two branches of charge. The first was a charge of want of personal courtesy to Mr. Canning, as exhibited in the foregoing correspondence; the second was a general charge of hostility to the new premier, founded on personal jealousy, and on every other ground, probable or improbable, which the malice of party could suggest. The Duke began by observing, that the House of Lords was scarcely the proper place to enter on such subjects, but that his only excuse was the necessity of vindicating his character against what had been said in another place, to say nothing of the manner in which he had been treated by a corrupt press, which if not in the pay, was under the control of the government. He then proceeded to meet the first charge, that of personal discourtesy. It was said, that his asking in reply to Mr. Canning's first letter, "who was to be at the head of the new government?" was intended as an insult to Mr. Canning. This he denied. The letter of Mr. Canning, he said gave no information who were to form the new cabinet, or what members of the old one had resigned, or were expected to resign. Nor was he invited, as he found the other ministers had been, to receive personal explanations on the subject. Under those circumstances the inquiry was made. But that was not the first communication that had passed between them on the subject. Early in the month of April, continued the Duke, he had had a conversation with Mr. Canning, in which, anticipating the possibility of his being called upon to reconstruct the government, one of his plans was to recommend that Mr. Robinson (now the Earl of Ripon) should be raised to the peerage and be made premier. Of this plan the Duke at the time approved, and it was with this in his mind that he wrote the first answer, which gave Mr. Canning so much offence. Precedent, also, he contended, was against Mr. Canning; for it appeared that in 1812, when Lord Liverpool, by command of the Prince Regent, waited on Mr. Canning, to know whether he would form part of the proposed administration, the first question Mr. Canning asked of the noble earl (then in the same position Mr. Canning was in now) was, "who was to be at the head of the new administration?" The Duke's letter was written on the 10th, and Mr. Canning only kissed hands as minister on the 12th; so that, even in that point of view, the Duke's question was, he contended, necessary.

It may be said that there is enough on the face of this communication to show that the Duke of Wellington took a narrow, and, so to speak, technical, view of the relative positions of himself and Mr. Canning; that the latter expected a more conventional and generous construction of his position and proposal from one with whom he was on terms of intimate friendship.

In answer to this, it may be as well to remind the reader that, where the slightest movements of public men may be construed into a compromise of public principles, a rigid attention to etiquette becomes a matter of duty. Many acts of the Duke of Wellington, not merely as a civilian, but even as a military commander, have been misjudged, because this obvious principle has been overlooked.

In answer to the second charge--that of hostility to the new administration on personal grounds--the Duke referred to the known opinions of Mr. Canning on the Catholic question. How could he be in office under a minister whom he must oppose on, at least, one vital question of domestic policy? How could he give the right honourable gentleman that fair support which one member of a cabinet had a right to expect from another? The principles of the new government could not be those of that of the Earl of Liverpool. The principle of the latter was to maintain the existing laws; of the former, to change them in a fundamental particular. The absurd calumny that he had threatened the king to resign, unless he were prepared to make him prime minister, hardly deserved an answer; and then came his celebrated _nolo episcopari_ speech, which created against him in a year after, so much ridicule and rancour. He said--"Was it likely that he would resign the office of commander-in-chief," a situation so consonant to his feelings and his habits, "for the mere empty ambition of being placed at the head of the government. I know," continued the Duke, "I am disqualified for any such office; and I, therefore, say, that, feeling as I do with respect to the situation which I recently filled at the head of the army; liking it as I did from the opportunity it gave me to improve the condition of my old comrades in arms; knowing my own capacity for filling that office, and my incapacity for filling the post of first minister, I should have been mad, and worse than mad, if I had ever entertained the insane project which certain individuals, for their own base purposes, have imputed to me."

His reason for retiring from the command of the army was founded on the peculiar circumstances of his dispute with Mr. Canning. "No political opinions would have prevented him," he said, "under ordinary circumstances, from continuing either at the Horse Guards or at the head of the army in the field; but, from the tone and tenor of the communication he had received from his majesty; from the nature of the invitation to join the administration, contained in Mr. Canning's post letter, and from the contents of the last letter he received from Mr. Canning, by his majesty's commands, he saw it would be impossible to continue his relations with that gentlemen, either with service to the country or credit to himself. His resolution had been adopted after the most mature deliberation."

The foregoing is the substance of the Duke of Wellington's explanation of his own share in the general resignation of the chief members of Lord Liverpool's cabinet.

Another circumstance occurred a few days afterwards, which still further increased the public belief that there was a serious quarrel between the Duke and the new premier. The former moved an amendment in committee on the corn bill, which had the effect of defeating the new government on that measure. This was regarded as an act of hostility on the part of the Duke, and, shortly after, a correspondence was made public between him and Mr. Huskisson, then President of the Board of Trade, in which it appeared clear that the Duke had moved the amendment in the belief that the government had agreed to it through Mr. Huskisson, and equally clear that the Duke had been mistaken. There were not wanting those who asserted roundly that the Duke had taken advantage of an ambiguity in Mr. Huskisson's letters, in order to have a pretext for inflicting this injury on the government. And, unhappily, Mr. Canning himself, carried out of parliamentary decorum by an irritability of temper, springing from the difficulties of his position and from his advancing illness, went so far as publicly to declare that the Duke of Wellington, great man as he was, had been but in instrument in the hands of others. History, he said, afforded parallel the actions of other great men.

The Duke maintained a dignified silence with respect to this attack; but, in the following year, long after Mr. Canning's death, and when he had himself become prime minister, he took an opportunity of disclaiming, in strong language, the existance of any personal hostility on his part to the deceased statesman.

On the formation of the new administration, under Lord Goderich, the Duke of Wellington resumed the command of the army. This was on August the 27th.

Early in January, 1828, this administration fell to pieces, and the Duke of Wellington was called on by the king to form another. He was at first reluctant to do so, but ultimately gave way. He rallied round him Mr. Peel, and most of those who had seceded on the accession of Mr. Canning; so that his administration was nearly identical with that of the Earl of Liverpool, except that Mr. Huskisson and some two or three of the coalitionary whigs, were retained.

In the following May, these were got rid of. Mr. Huskisson gave a vote on the East Retford Bill, adverse to those of his colleagues; and on leaving the house, sat down (at two in the morning), and wrote a letter to the Duke, which was construed into a positive resignation of office. An amusing correspondence took place between the two statesmen, Mr. Huskisson declaring he never meant to resign, and the Duke as positively adhering to his original construction of the first letter. Mr. Huskisson's place was filled up, and he resented that proceeding by declaring in the House of Commons his belief that he had been sacrificed as a peace-offering to gain the support of some of the old tories.

The whole of the Duke's share in this correspondence is highly characteristic; and it was in the course of negotiations for the return of Mr. Huskisson that the Duke uttered the sentence so often quoted of him: "It is no mistake; it can be no mistake; and it shall be no mistake!" Strange to say, although the Duke's mode of proceeding to Mr. Huskisson was somewhat arbitrary, it gained him a sort of popularity, on account of the firmness with which he stuck to his point. The laugh was fairly on his side; and many of the vessels in the Thames hoisted flags, and exhibited other signs of rejoicing at Mr. Huskisson's dismissal.

On his appointment to be Prime Minister, the Duke again resigned the command of the army (Feb. 14th).

The first important measure, during the Duke's administration, was the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. In giving his support to that bill, the Duke met an argument, that it was a step towards Roman Catholic emancipation, by a declaration that, though he voted for the measure, no man could be a more determined opponent of those claims than he; and he added, "Until I see a great change in that question, I shall certainly oppose it." In the June following, however, the commons having in the meanwhile passed a resolution indicating favour to emancipation, the Duke declared that he looked on the question as one of expediency; and concluded his speech by recommending that the public mind should be allowed to rest. In the end, it might be possible to do something; for he was most desirous of seeing the subject brought to an amicable conclusion.

Causes altogether independent of parliamentary majorities or discussions had in the mean time been at work, and had proposed this change in the tone of ministers. Mr. O'Connell, although a Catholic, had been returned to parliament as member for the county of Clare; and during the summer and autumn, the whole of the Catholic population had become so organized, under the Catholic Association, as seriously to threaten the continuance of the existing system in Ireland. These events produced their effects upon English statesmen on either side of the question; and the more moderate of the Conservative party began to think that some concession to the Catholics would be inevitable.

Still, however, the government gave no sign of yielding. On the contrary, a circumstance occurred, in the month of December, which led to an opposite inference. Dr. Curtis, a Roman Catholic prelate, who had been on terms of personal acquaintance with the Duke of Wellington at Salamanca, wrote a letter to him on the position of the Catholic question, to which the Duke wrote an answer, which seemed to deny all hope of a speedy settlement. It was immediately made public by Dr. Curtis through the Catholic Association. The effect of the letter was to make that body redouble their efforts.

In a few days after, the Marquis of Anglesea, the lord lieutenant, who had always been the avowed supporter of the Catholics, also addressed a letter in reply to one he received from Dr. Curtis, in which he gave the Catholics advice as to the best mode of proceeding in order to attain emancipation. This conduct on the part of the viceroy, together with the open countenance he gave to the leading catholics in Dublin, gave the strongest offence to the king, and amounted to such a breach of duty that the Duke of Wellington was compelled to recall the marquis from Ireland.

The public mind was now in the greatest perplexity. On the one hand, the state of Ireland seemed to render some measure of concession inevitable, while on the other there was the letter to Dr. Curtis, and the dismissal of the lord lieutenant--facts which seemed to discountenance all hope.

The year 1829 was the most eventful in the civil career of the Duke of Wellington. He had been throughout his life the opponent of Roman Catholic emancipation: he was now to come before the public in the new character of a prime minister prepared to grant, as a measure of free grace, that which he had hitherto denounced as inconsistent with the safety of the Protestant constitution.

Up to within a few days of the opening of parliament, however, the design of the government was wholly concealed, but in the speech from the throne parliament was recommended to entertain the question. In the debate on the address the Duke of Wellington announced it as the intention of the government to introduce a measure for the emancipation of the Catholics. And now arose a political storm almost unparalleled in the history of party, from the effects of which we are scarcely yet recovered.

The Duke and Mr. Peel were immediately made the objects of the most unrelenting hostility by the opponents of emancipation. Seeing the favour in which the two statesmen are now held by their party, it would be almost impossible to believe that such abusive language as was then poured forth could have been used towards them, were it not on record.

The Duke especially was charged with a treble treachery; to Mr. Canning, on account of the transactions previously referred to; towards the Protestant party, of whom he had been the chosen leader, and whom he was about to betray; and lastly a personal treachery in the concealment of his design until the moment of execution, by which he prevented others from coming forward and taking the station he had abandoned, as leader of the opponents of emancipation.

The Duke's replies to all these charges will be found at length in the following pages. But the charge of personal treachery was afterwards put in a shape which compelled the Duke of Wellington to take a very different notice of it. The Earl of Winchelsea wrote a letter to the secretary of King's College, in which, after adverting to the support which the Duke had given on Protestant principles to that institution, he stated that he now believed that the Duke's conduct had been only a blind to the high church party, and that he was about, under the cloak of the Protestant religion, to carry into effect his insidious designs for the infringement of our liberties, and the introduction of Popery into every department of the state. This letter the Duke found himself bound to notice; but the earl refused to retract. A correspondence took place, which ended in a duel. Neither party was hurt, and the earl subsequently made a public apology for the original expressions.

In the meanwhile the Emancipation Bill was steadily progressing. On the 19th of February, in introducing the bill for the suppression of dangerous associations, the Duke of Wellington declared that there had been no previous bargain or compact with the Roman Catholic party while the Emancipation Bill was in the House of Commons. Short discussions took place almost every night in the House of Lords upon its merits, in which whenever the Duke joined he did so with the greatest reluctance. At length, on the 2nd of April, he moved the second reading of the bill in the House of Lords, in a speech which reflected credit upon him for moral courage, if not for consistency.

In fact, great moral courage is one of the most striking features in the character of the Duke of Wellington. Some of his supporters will doubt this assertion; and will point to the Emancipation Act as a proof that the Duke wanted the firmness to act up to his avowed principles. This involves a wrong assumption. It is one thing obstinately to adhere to an opinion in defiance of its impracticability: another to retract that opinion so soon as its impracticability is demonstrated. Whether the Duke was right or wrong in his opinions, no one will deny that it required great moral courage for him to stand up in the face of the country, braving the anger of his old associates, and declare that he could no longer resist the force of public opinion.

It was in the course of the speech introducing the Emancipation Bill that the Duke made his well-known declaration "that he would sacrifice his life to prevent one month of civil war."

One fruit of the angry passions excited during the progress of the Emancipation Bill was a series of prosecutions against the _Morning Journal_ for libels on the Duke of Wellington, the Lord Chancellor, and the government collectively. These prosecutions were conducted with unusual acrimony by Sir James Scarlet, the Attorney-General; and the Duke of Wellington came in for a very considerable share of public censure for having authorised such prosecutions. Probably the Duke intended to inflict another "great moral lesson," as he has always set his face against the unrestrained license of the press; but, looking back with calmer feelings to the events of that excited period, and admitting that the language used by the editor was certainly too strong, though faithfully representing the feelings of a large class of the public, it is certainly difficult to avoid now coming to the conclusion that Mr. Alexander, when sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in Newgate and heavy fines, was treated with a severity scarcely justifiable. It is probable that the Duke of Wellington, acting on his rigid notions of the division of responsibility, after ordering the prosecution, left the affair to Sir James Scarlet, and from that moment declined to interfere.

Among the discussions to which the prosecutions gave rise, an amusing speech of Sir Charles Wetherell, on the 2nd of March, 1830, in the House of Commons, will repay perusal.

In a debate which took place in the House of Lords on the first night of the session, upon the state of the country, the Duke of Wellington delivered a speech upon the causes of the existing distress, which proved (allowances being made for differences of opinion) that his qualifications to deal with the most intricate questions involved in civil government were very little inferior to his military talents. Passages from that speech will be found in the following pages. At the time many of his views were ridiculed by those political economists who were destined so soon to rise to power under shelter of the reform question; but it will be seen that the improved experience of the country after ten years' undisputed sway of those gentlemen, confirms many of the chief conclusion to which the astute and practical mind of the Duke of Wellington then led him. That speech, however, raised a hornet's nest around him in the House of Commons. Among others, Sir Francis Burdett made a personal attack on the Duke, in which he said that his administration showed how correct was his estimate of his own powers when he said he would be mad to think of being prime minister. That illustrious individual, he said, had been treated with much tenderness, because he had conferred the greatest benefits on his country; but if his services had been great his recompense had been great also. Mr. Brougham, also, made a most personal attack on the Duke on the day before parliament closed.

In the mean while, George the Fourth died (on the 26th of June), and parliament was dissolved. The new parliament, called by William the Fourth, was opened by the king in person on November the 2nd. It was decidedly unfavourable to the ministry, against whom were arrayed a most talented and unscrupulous opposition. They swayed with almost absolute power the great mass of the people, who hoped everything from parliamentary reform, and had not as yet had experience of the extravagance of such hopes. A part of the tactics of the whig leaders was to excite personal animosity against the Duke of Wellington, who was libelled as a sort of would-be military dictator, seeking to introduce in civil affairs the iron discipline of the camp, and to ride rough shod over a free people.

With the clamour for reform out of doors and in the commons, it was not to be supposed that even the impassible Duke of Wellington could avoid referring to the subject in the debate on the address. This he did, with more candour than prudence, by his well-known declaration against reform, and in favour of the existing system. It will be found at length elsewhere. The excitement it produced was enormous: so great, that in three days afterwards ministers advised William the Fourth not to proceed to the City to visit the Lord Mayor, lest there should be tumults.

On the 15th, they were defeated in the House of Commons, upon a motion of Sir Henry Parnell, for a committee to inquire into the civil list; and on the following day the Duke of Wellington and his colleagues resigned; being apprehensive that the same majority would vote for the principle of parliamentary reform in a day or two after, and not wishing to virtually give up that question by going out after being beaten on it in the House of Commons.

During the year 1831, while the discussions on the Reform Bill were going on, the Duke made frequent speeches against the measure, and led the opposition in the House of Lords in a manner quite consistent with his declaration in November. In a speech he made on the 28th March, explanatory of the causes of his resignation, he distinctly denied that the reform fever was owing to that declaration, and asserted that it was to be attributed to the effect on the public mind of the revolutions in France and Belgium.

On the 10th of October, after the Reform Bill had been thrown out in the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington was insulted by a mob on his way to the house. In the evening, the windows of his mansion at Hyde Park-corner were broken. It is to be lamented that any class of Englishmen were to be found so degraded as to be guilty of this ingratitude.

Fortunately, the worst of the evil was averted, by the total indifference of the Duke to all such demonstrations. The greatest men have been despisers of mankind, of the swaying multitude, that is to say, the unthinking, the headstrong, and the violent--not of necessity merely, from that intrinsic superiority and natural antagonism which forbid their commingling; but also, and with a more hearty potency, from the experience which they, alternately the adored or the scorned, have had of the inconstancy of the giddy people. In this light estimation, indeed, of the judgment of their less worthy fellows, lies the secret of their greatness and their strength. They ride towards their goal while the stream tends that way, and when the course of the current is diverted, they are not dismayed. Their scorn of the means leads them to pass on by their own strength, or to rest secure on the foundation-rock of our moral nature--principle, and the consciousness of duty done.

In April, 1832, on the motion for the second reading of the new Reform Bill in the House of Lords, the Duke made a speech, characterised by unqualified opposition to the measure, at a time when many of the conservative peers (called "waverers,") were for giving it a qualified support. But, after a defeat of ministers in committee, on Lord Lyndhursts motion of the 7th of May, followed by their resignation, and when the king, rather than agree to create peers, called on the Duke of Wellington to form an administration, he expressed his readiness to do so upon the principle of moderate reform.

This sudden inconsistency the public could not understand; the Duke's avowed reason was that when called on by his sovereign he could not leave him alone in his difficulty. However, the Duke's efforts were brought to a summary conclusion by the refusal of Sir Robert Peel to join in the attempt.

It is amusing to see the opposite Views these two statesmen took of their duties to their king. Sir Robert Peel considered that "his acceptance of office pledged to carry an efficient Reform Bill, he being a determined enemy to such a measure, would be a political immorality which would not allow him to enter on his services with a firm step, a light heart, and an erect attitude." The Duke said, "if he had refused to assist his majesty, because he had hitherto given his opposition to parliamentary reform, he would not have been able to show his face in the streets for shame of having deserted his sovereign in circumstances so painful and alarming." The result of Sir Robert's refusal was, that the Duke gave up the attempt, and Earl Grey was recalled.

During the sessions of 1833 and 1834, the Duke was the leader of the opposition in the House of Lords; always at his post, and always ready to grapple with the different questions brought before the peers. On the 9th of June, 1834, took place his installation as Chancellor of the University of Oxford;--a brilliant scene, at which some of the most distinguished men of the day assisted.

In November, 1834, on the death of Lord Spencer, and the dismissal of the whig ministry, the king called on the Duke of Wellington to form an administration. The Duke recommended his majesty to entrust that office to Sir Robert Peel, who, however, was then at Rome. During the interval that elapsed before his arrival, the Duke accepted, provisionally, the office of First Lord of the Treasury, and the seals of the three secretaryships of state. On Sir Robert Peel's arrival, he gave up the government, with the exception of the office of Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which (December 9th) he retained.

Much clamour was at this time raised against the Duke by the whigs, on the old score of dictatorship, and also as to a supposed insult offered to Lord Melbourne.

On the meeting of parliament in the following February (on the 24th), the Duke gave an explanation of his conduct (inserted in this volume), sufficient to clear him in all impartial eyes of all the charges then urged against him by party spirit.

On the 8th of April following, in consequence of the repeated defeats sustained in the House of Commons by Sir Robert Peel, the conservative ministry resigned, and with them of course the Duke of Wellington. From that time until the re-accession of Sir Robert Peel to power, in 1841, the Duke continued to lead, with his accustomed vigour and unpretending ability, the opposition in the House of Lords. In this position, he exercised the utmost forbearance towards the government; never using his power except when circumstances absolutely required its exercise.

One of these instances occurred at the opening of the session of 1836, when the principles of a particular measure were recommended in a speech from the throne. To the address the Duke moved an amendment, condemnatory of the practice of thus pledging the sovereign in a speech from the throne to the principles of any measure. The amendment was agreed to by the whigs.

During the whole interval between 1833 and 1841, the Duke is to be found occasionally speaking in the upper house, in his capacity of leader of opposition. The same sound practical sense which has been already attributed to him, characterised his whole proceedings. It is needless to particularise the different important debates in which he took part.

In August, 1839, a grand banquet was given to the Duke at Dover, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. A splendid pavilion was erected for the occasion, in which two thousand persons, including some most distinguished men, sat down to dinner. The gallery was filled with ladies. The most interesting point in the day's proceedings, was when Lord Brougham, the most active and distinguished civilian of his age, rose to propose the health of the Duke of Wellington, the most illustrious military commander. Eulogium could scarcely he carried farther than it was by Lord Brougham in these words:--

"Although no man," said the noble and learned lord, "on such an occasion, is entitled to entertain any personal feelings on his own behalf, it would be affectation--it would be insolent ingratitude--were I not to express the sentiments which glow within my bosom, at being made the instrument of making known those feelings which reign predominant in yours. Enough, however, of myself--now for my mighty subject.--But the choice you have made of your instrument--of your organ, as it were, on this occasion--is not unconnected with that subject; for it shows that on this day, on this occasion, all personal, all political feelings are quelled--all strife of party is hushed--that we are incapable, whatever be our opinions, of refusing to acknowledge transcendant merit, and of denying that we feel the irresistible impulse of unbounded gratitude; and I am therefore asked to do this service, as if to show that no difference of opinion upon subjects, however important--no long course of opposition, however contracted upon public principles--not even long inveterate habits of public opposition--are able so far to stifle the natural feelings of our hearts, so far to obscure our reason, as to prevent us from feeling as we ought--boundless gratitude for boundless merit. Neither can it pluck from our minds that admiration proportioned to the transcendant genius, in peace and in war, of him who is amongst us to-day; nor can it lighten or alleviate the painful, the deep sense which the untried mind never can get rid of when it is overwhelmed by a debt of gratitude, too boundless to be repaid. Party--the spirit of party--may do much, but it cannot operate so far as to make us forget those services; it cannot so far bewilder the memory, and pervert the judgment, and eradicate from our bosoms those feelings which do us the most honour, and are the most unavoidable, and, as it were, dry up the kindly juices of the heart; and, notwithstanding all its vile and malignant influence on other occasions, it cannot dry up those juices of the heart so as to parch it like very charcoal, and make it almost as black. But what else have I to do? If I had all the eloquence of all the tongues ever attuned to speak, what else could I do? How could a thousand words, or all the names that could be named, speak so powerfully--ay, even if I spoke with the tongue of an angel, as if I were to mention one word--Sir Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, the hero of a hundred fields, in all of which his banner was waved in triumph; who never, I invoke both hemispheres to witness--bear witness Europe, bear witness Asia--who never advanced but to cover his arms with glory; the captain who never advanced but to be victorious; the mightier captain who never retreated but to eclipse the glory of his advance, by the yet harder task of unwearied patience, indomitable to lassitude, the inexhaustible resources of transcendant skill, showing the wonders, the marvels of a moral courage never yet subdued. Despising all who thwarted him with ill-considered advice--neglecting all hostility, so he knew it to be groundless--laughing to scorn reviling enemies, jealous competitors, lukewarm friends, ay, hardest of all, to neglect despising even a fickle public, he cast his eye forwards as a man might--else he deserves not to command men--cast forward his eye to a time when that momentary fickleness of the people would pass away, knowing that in the end the people are always just to merit."

The Duke's acknowledgement, was simple, according to his character, and modest as became his position. He said, "The noble lord, who I hope will allow me to call him my noble friend, has stated to you with great truth, that there are times and circumstances in which, and under which, all feelings of party, all party animosity, all descriptions of political feelings must be laid aside. I must do my noble and learned friend the justice to say, that for years and years there has been nothing of that description in social life as between him and me, notwithstanding which it is certainly true that I have had the misfortune of differing in opinion with my noble and learned friend upon many points of internal and possibly of other descriptions of policy. But I am afraid that, notwithstanding my most anxious wish to co-operate with all of you in the public service in which we have all been employed, I may happen (I know it does happen) to differ with some of you upon subjects of political interest to the country. But my noble and learned friend judges of you correctly when he says that such feelings of difference would not prevent you--as they have not prevented you--from doing me the honour of inviting me to this festival, and of bringing here to meet me not only the whole of this interesting county, but persons from all parts of the kingdom and even from abroad. Therefore my noble and learned friend does you as well as himself justice when he states that there are occasions--occasions in relation to individuals as well as in relation to public interests and services--in which all feelings of party politics and opinions must be laid aside, in order to carry on the public service to the greatest point of advantage to the public interest. I have had sufficient experience in public life to know that this must be the case. I am convinced that it is that feeling which has induced you to pay this tribute of respect to the person holding the situation of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, in order that you might encourage others hereafter to perform their duty honestly and conscientiously in the same honourable office."

On the 18th November, the same year, the Duke had an attack of epilepsy, which for a short time alarmed the public greatly for his safety, on account of his advanced age. Sir Astley Cooper and Dr. Hume were down at Walmer with him for a week, at the end of which time he recovered, greatly to the joy of the whole nation. It turned out that the Duke had brought on the attack adopting, to cure himself of a slight illness, a mode of treatment which would not be the most wise in a man of twenty-five, but was most dangerous to one so advanced in years. The Duke is very determined on such points--can never be persuaded that he is not the same man in point of constitution that he was when in the Peninsula; and still preserves all the hardy habits of a soldier's life. On this occasion he had sought to cure himself by fasting and cold bathing: he then, while under this treatment, followed the hounds, the consequence of which was that he fainted, and was soon afterwards seized as described.

On the return of Sir Robert Peel to power, in 1841, the Duke of Wellington again joined him; but this time he took no office, though accepting a seat in the cabinet. He still continued to lead in the lords, where his influence is fully felt, and where he constantly astonishes the house and silences his detractors by displaying a degree of knowledge on all legislative subjects scarcely compatible with his military education, and an activity and attention to business that would be admirable in any one, but which are still more praiseworthy as the voluntary service of a man who has conferred such distinguished benefits on his country.

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Few men have been so blessed by fortune as to have been enabled to achieve a first-rate reputation in arms, and afterwards to arrive at as great distinction in the arts of peace. Rarely, at long intervals in the lapse of time, such opportunities have been afforded to great men; but still more rarely have even the greatest men been able to use them. To the Duke of Wellington, in our own time, has this high honour been especially vouchsafed; and no man ever yet lived who shewed himself more worthy the distinction, or more able to fulfill the demands of his country, whether in peace or in war. His youth and prime were spent in achieving victories: to preserve to posterity the fruits of those victories, in steady government, together with free institutions; to make England such an example for foreign nations as would render all such victories unnecessary hereafter; this has been the still more glorious task of his declining years.

The military reputation of the Duke of Wellington rests on so firm a basis, that it will never be shaken. So long as military science is necessary in the world, so long will his system of tactics be followed by commanders responsible in their own hearts for the lives of their soldiers, and to their country for the conduct of their enterprises.

Of the military value of his dispositions and movements, military critics have recorded, almost universally, their unqualified praise. To civilians, it is left to admire the constant and watchful care of the Duke, whether in India or the Peninsula, in securing the due provision for his troops, while he at the same time maintained the strictest honour towards the natives who supplied them; and to respect the clearness of his perception, the sagacity of his decisions, and, above all, the firmness and determination of purpose which sustained him amidst every drawback and difficulty, until by his success he compelled his detractors to yield themselves captive to his judgment. It is only necessary to read the dispatches and general orders of the Duke of Wellington, in order to be convinced that he is not a mere soldier winning battles by superior tactics, but that he is also a man of a very high order of general talent, with an unusual insight into human nature, and possessing almost an instinctive knowledge of how mankind are to be governed. By that wonderful exposition of the comprehensive, wise, and philanthropic mind of the man, even his enemies were subdued.

Much controversy has been spent upon the demeanour of the Duke towards his soldiers, which has been stigmatised as cold, distant, at times harsh, and even selfish. For the charges of coldness and distance there appears to be some foundation. Unlike Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington never appealed to the enthusiasm of his soldiers; but he always relied upon their sense of duty. He regarded his army, organized by discipline, as a perfect machine, upon the performance of which he could calculate with precision, and as he never expected it to do more than it ought, so he never looked to see it do less. The idea of duty, of absolute responsibility and subordination from rank to rank, seems to have been that to which he was always content to appeal. Accordingly, his troops never failed him. Their rock-like steadfastness and constant unimpulsive bravery, it was that enabled him to carry out his plans with such certainty.

The contrast to Napoleon is no Where more seen than in the dispatches of the one and the bulletins of the other. In his demeanour to his men, the Duke was reserved; in his language, curt and laconic. If his troops felt the moral certainty that he was leading them to victory, and honoured him accordingly, it was not from personal enthusiasm, such as the wild love the emperor inspired in those around him, but from a deep respect for his character and a reliance on his talents. Nor did he condescend to charlatantism or bombast, as his great rival too often did. There is not the slightest trace of vanity about him. Compare the speech of the one to his army, beneath the Pyramids, with the simple, "Up, guards, and at them!" of the other. In these trifles, we find the key to the real minds of great men.

The political character of the Duke, and his services as a civilian, have never been sufficiently appreciated by the great mass of his countrymen. His brilliant military reputation cast into the shade his sterling but unobtrusive services as a senator and as a minister. It was even the fashion, for a long time, to assert that his taking office at all was a sign of defective judgment. Indeed, when he declared, in the House of Lords, that he would be "worse than mad to think of such a thing," he gave a colour to the supposition. His subsequent assertion, after he had become prime minister, that he had done so "because nobody else would," conveyed, in all probability, the simple truth. The Duke did not know his own capacity for government, until it was tried.