interest was paramount), and his appointment to the command of the Hastings district. Much merit is attributed to Sir Arthur for accepting this command. Mr. Gleig says, at

page 49:

'Had he looked upon this as a slight rather than a favour, no one could have been surprised. The descent was striking enough from the management of great armies in the field, to the routine duty of drilling and inspecting two or three battalions at a home station. But Sir Arthur never for a moment took so unworthy a view of the matter, "I have eaten the King's salt," was his reply to some who remarked on the arrangement, " and consider myself bound to go where I am sent, and to do as I am ordered."

6

We think the point itself is much overstrained. No one knew better than Sir Arthur the wisdom of accepting the first home command that was offered to him. Those who look upon such appointments as slights rather than favours do not get on in the world. His brother was not at the head of affairs in England. The Duke of York promised him employment, and offered him the first suitable command that he had to bestow. It was hardly so unimportant as has been represented. The present Duke says, in his Preface to vol. v. 'Supplemental Despatches.' In February, 1806, he was posted to a brigade of infantry stationed on the coast of Sussex, in readiness to resist an expected invasion by Napoleon Buonaparte.' Having returned from splendid prospects in India, expressly with views of European service, he was not likely, with the sound sense that he possessed, to throw away any chance that might tend towards ultimate success. Did he not write to Malcolm, 'Don't however be in a hurry?' We next come to Sir Arthur's appointment, with 80007. a year, to the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland, in which office, amongst other important trusts, the duty was committed to him, of 'managing what were called the political influences of Ireland,' which had been done time out of mind, with just so much of disguise, as to render the corruption over which the veil was assumed to be thrown doubly hideous.' Mr. Gleig has often heard him speak of the political system of that period, and always in the same terms.' And the following are some of the expressions which he attributes to him, in the course of a conversation,

But if the object sought be the best possible Government, and if that Government cannot be obtained except through the venality of individuals, you surely won't blame those who turn even the moral weaknesses of individuals to good account?'. . . . 'I am one of those who believe that no nation has thriven, or ever will thrive, under a scramble. And, therefore, since I cannot command a majority

in favour of order, except by influence, I am willing to use influence, even though the particular manner of using it may go against the grain... It is in counties, and in what are called open boroughs, that the influence of Government tells most, particularly in Ireland, where in my day at least, almost every man of mark in the state had his price.'

And in the summary of his character Mr. Gleig further remarks:

'His Irish Administration has, indeed, been described by some writers as disfigured by the grossest jobbery. Is this fair? Is this candid? Certainly Sir Arthur Wellesley jobbed; but let us not forget that in those days Government was avowedly carried on by influence; and that influence, especially in Ireland, meant pensions, places, and hard cash,' 'He was, perhaps, the most open, and therefore the most honest, trafficker in Parliamentary support that ever bartered place or pension for votes. He never affected to believe in the principles of his correspondents. He knew them to be venal, and he bribed them because it was his duty to the Government which he served to do so.'

But he contradicts himself lower in the same page,—

'He will not arrive at an end justifiable in itself, by means which cannot he justified. He will never do evil that good may come.'

And again in the following page,

'Whatever partook, or seemed to partake, of the crooked or disingenuous, was abhorrent to his nature; nor would any considerations of probable gain even to the country induce him to take part in it.'

Looking back upon the Duke's history as a whole, we certainly feel inclined to exclaim, 'que diable faisait-il dans cette galère.' How came he thus to be made a willing and able instrument of the grossest corruption? No doubt had he refused to govern Ireland by applying to its inhabitants the only motives by which they could be induced to act, he would have done very differently from the public men of that day. Lord Cornwallis, for instance, had a keen sense of the discredit which attached to jobbing of every kind, and in his Indian letters he descants with the utmost acrimony upon the conduct of men as upright as himself, whom he conceives to have practised it—yet in his Irish correspondence he describes himself as engaged carrying on a system of corruption. But he was

*Cornwallis Despatches,' iii. 39 (A.D. 1799). You, who know how I detest a job, will be sensible of the difficulties which I must often have to keep my temper; but still the object [the Union] is great, and perhaps the salvation of the British empire may depend upon it. I shall therefore as much as possible overcome my detestation of the work in which I am engaged and work on steadily to my point.'

a leading

a leading politician, and had a great object in view-the Union of Ireland with Great Britain. Men of spotless personal honour, such as Windham, had held the office of Chief Secretary; and the Prime Ministers of England in succession-no ignoble series of men-had tolerated, and might be said to have sanctioned, the system. Yet we do not exactly see how Sir Arthur Wellesley, a military man, was obliged to accept an office which could only be worked by the means he describes. But he, no doubt, received in the discharge of these functions lessons of human nature which his observant mind turned to good account in his subsequent dealings with men, both in war and diplomacy. We turn with pleasure from this bribery and corruption, and these discrepancies, to the birth of his son on the 7th February, 1807; for we find that he had, on the 10th of the previous April, married the same Lady Catherine Pakenham, to whom as a Captain of Cavalry he became attached.'

When it was determined to despatch the Copenhagen expedition, to prevent Buonaparte from using the Danish fleet against ourselves, Sir Arthur applied for a command in it. He was, however, doing his work so well in Ireland, that his application was not in the first instance favourably entertained, and he, therefore, wrote to Lord Castlereagh on the 7th June,

As I am determined not to give up the military profession, and as I know that I can be of no service in it unless I have the confidence and esteem of the officers and soldiers of the army, I must shape my course in such a manner as to avoid the imputation of preferring lucrative civil employment to active service in the field.'

He also wrote to the Duke of Richmond (the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland), about the same time :

I accepted my office in Ireland solely on the condition that it should not preclude me from such service when an opportunity should offer; and I am convinced that though you may feel some inconvenience from my temporary absence, supposing that it is intended that I should return to you, or from the loss of the assistance of an old friend, supposing that it is not, you would be the last man to desire or to wish that I should do anything with which I should not be satisfied myself; and I acknowledge that I should not be satisfied if I allowed any opportunity of service to pass by without offering myself.'

We give these quotations entire from Mr. Gleig's work, as showing how determined Sir Arthur was not to lose any opportunity of military service, of obtaining the confidence of the army, and of carving his way upwards. Better proof can hardly be required of the lofty ambition by which he was actuated, but Vol. 120.-No. 239. which

D

which Mr. Gleig would, in spite of the evidence he himself adduces, deny to his character. Sir Arthur, therefore, leaving a substitute in his Dublin office, joined the Danish expedition under Lord Cathcart.

He proposed wisely, and in a humane spirit, to save Copenhagen from bombardment, and to starve it out by cutting off its means of communication with the main land; but his views were rejected, and he was despatched with his division into the interior, while the remainder of the army was engaged in the siege. He encountered the Danes near Keoge, and defeated them, capturing 1500 prisoners and 14 guns, and after negociating for the surrender of the fleet, he returned to England in the frigate which brought home the despatches. Besides obtaining credit with the army and the Government, and esteem from the native population, in consequence of the protection which he afforded to them, he received the special thanks of the British Parliament for this three months of service. And M. Thiers refers to him in his History, as an officer who, after seeing service in India, was mainly known for his able conduct at Copenhagen.

But he was not now to remain long in peaceful employment. The project which had been entertained of conquering Spanish America in revenge for the disaster of Buenos Ayres fell to the ground on the receipt of the important intelligence that the Spanish nation had risen against their French invaders. Sir Arthur Wellesley had drawn up numerous minutes on the subject between 1806 and 1808, and had been appointed to a force assembled at Cork for transport to South America. He was next consulted in regard to the best means of assisting the Peninsular patriots, and the offer of a command in the expedition, when it was proposed to divert it to that purpose, was naturally made to him. Mr. Gleig says the offer was clogged with conditions which rendered the acceptance inconvenient, if not disagreeable. They' (the Government, we presume) 'insisted on retaining his services in Ireland, and that he should again discharge the duties of his office by deputy.' But it could have been no great hardship to him to continue to hold such an office by deputy, and to receive part of the emoluments attached to it, at the same time that he obtained what his soul chiefly coveted a military command. Whether 'they' intended and desired him to refuse the command-as believed by Mr. Gleig -or not, he was too much in earnest to be deterred by trifles,' and in less than twenty-four hours the whole was settled.

6

Before Sir Arthur started for Portugal, a conversation occurred

between

between him and Mr. Croker in London, which was afterwards quoted in the pages of this Review.* Mr. Gleig cites the most material part of the conversation :—

They (the French) have besides, it seems, a new system, which has out-manœuvred and overwhelmed all the armies of Europe; but no matter, my die is cast. They may overwhelm, but I don't think they will out-manœuvre me. In the first place, I am not afraid of them, as everybody else seems to be; and, secondly, if what I hear of their system of manoeuvring be true, I think it a false one against troops steady enough, as I hope mine are, to receive them with the bayonet. I suspect that half the continental armies were more than half beaten before the battle began. I, at least, will not be frightened beforehand.'

After making the quotation, Mr. Gleig intimates a suspicion 'that Mr. Croker's memory was a little at fault in regard to details; and he adds, 'the flourish about receiving the French with the bayonet, and the steadiness required to do so, was not, I will venture to say, Sir Arthur Wellesley's, but Mr. Croker's flourish. But the only reasons he gives for the latter belief are that the phraseology is not the Duke's and the inferences to which it leads would be unsound. He explains that—

The Duke knew better than most men that the only difference then between French and English tactics was this, that whereas the French attacked in column, the English always attacked in line; and that the real resistance to an attack by troops waiting for their adversaries in line comes from the volume of fire with which the column is received. All armies, French as well as English, Russian, German, and Italians, defend a position in line, provided the assailants give them time to deploy. But the English alone have hitherto attacked in line, though I believe that the armies of other nations are beginning in this respect to follow their example.'

The information here given to us by Mr. Gleig is not in all respects accurate. At present, we apprehend, English troops would only occasionally, and other troops would never, attack in line on the field of battle. And we do not believe that any but English troops could now be trusted to resist a serious attack in line, i. e. with a line of battle formed of regiments or battalions in line.

At Waterloo the Duke received the charges of the columns of the Guard with his English troops in line, but he did not venture to trust his foreign troops in that formation at any time during the battle.

At the time of the conversation objected to by Mr. Gleig, between the Duke and Mr. Croker, the question of line versus

Quarterly Review, vol. xcii. p. 519.
D 2

column