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his real, and it will be his lasting, honour; it is in this that he so much surpasses all conquerors of all times. One scarcely knows which more to admire, the prudence or the humanity of his defensive system. In his bold defiance of the clamour of unthinking multitudes, both in England and in the Peninsula, heedless alike of human life and probable consequences, there is a sublime courage-inconceivably more glorious than was ever displayed in the ordering of battle, and the slaughter of men. This-this was heroism! This-this was glory! Here it is that Wellington had fellowship with spirits of the loftiest order!

On the directly military part of his Grace's character, it is not to my taste, nor necessary to my purpose, to dwell. Suffice it to say, that the hour, and all the circumstances which the sagacity of the Duke had anticipated, at length arrived. Then began the fighting, when he showed mankind that he was not less mighty in assault than he had been in defence; that he could assail and pursue with resistless energy, as well as defend and retreat with consummate prudence. Having fairly commenced, he pressed forward, in the greatness of his might, like an impetuous torrent, bearing down whatever stood opposed to him, and halted not till he planted his foot in the capital of France! But on this part of the subject why should I linger? Can anything be added to the declaration, or rather confession, of Napoleon himself, who said, "Wellington is my equal as a general,-my superior in prudence."

The Duke of Wellington has been highly favoured. There is no case of a first-rate general surviving his wars half so long as his Grace has done. After completing his military enterprise, he has had nearly a generation to study the arts of peace and of civil government. He has, therefore, enjoyed the opportunity of adding the virtues and services of the loyal citizen to those of the faithful and able commander-a felicity

peculiar to himself—but a felicity which has necessarily not been without its perils to his fame. His Grace has lived in troublous times, notwithstanding they have been times of peace; and, true to his manly character, in all civil, as well as in all military conflicts, he has never shrunk from his share in battle and in responsibility. His reputation has, therefore, in all points, sustained a fiery ordeal. His friends, however-and they are millions have abundant reason to congratulate both themselves and him on the fact, that not one leaf of his laurels has faded, not a single ray of his lustre been obscured. This is certainly a circumstance and a satisfaction of no ordinary kind. His Grace's maintenance, and not merely his maintenance, but, upon the whole, his improvement of his position, is the most convincing proof of the real greatness of his character. That character, at the distance of six and twenty years from his great and final victory, stands forth like the public statue which adjoins his mansion, in all the strength, grandeur, and majesty of its gigantic dimensions, unimpaired by the violence of the civil and political storms which, for so long a space, have raged around it. This fact demonstrates that the character of his Grace has in it nothing factitious; that it is a piece of pure solid gold, and will live in his country's history so long as true greatness is appreciated among mankind. Notwithstanding differences from his political creed, notwithstanding some foolish sayings, and doings equally foolish, upright and candid men, of all parties, at home, and of all nations, abroad, are of one opinion relative to his lofty patriotism, to his political rectitude, and to his moral integrity.

The Duke of Wellington is incomparably the first historical personage now living. All reflecting, all virtuous men, his contemporaries, pronounce his name with feelings of respectful esteem, profound veneration, and admiring gratitude; and history will not reverse, but

establish, the general decision already pronounced by mankind. She will make due allowance for his aristocratic origin, for his peculiar temperament, and for his military education, and consequent habits; and in these she will find an apology for the want of attributes which would have imparted something more of a civil air to his noble nature and exalted character. History will adjudge that, not England alone, but Europe and the world, have been his Grace's debtors, and that he amply merited the wealth and honours which a grateful country awarded him. She will also notice, with point and significance, that, as in the vegetable world, the bane and the antidote always appear in the same field, so the same year which, in wrath, ushered into our world a Buonaparte, in mercy sent along with him a Wellington.

My Lord Duke, notwithstanding my admiration of your Grace's moral greatness, and also of your military genius, as far as it is possible for me to admire talent of that description, still I cannot look upon military enterprise with any feelings other than those of abhorrence or sorrow, according as it is aggressive or defensive. If may be allowed to speak comparatively, on such a subject, I think there have been but few wars in our world of a less exceptionable character than that which your Grace conducted on the Continent. Still this did not render the enterprise the less dreadful in many of its aspects, nor the less calamitous in many of its results. Your Grace's avowed and real object and motive were the overthrow of the tyrant of France, the oppressor of Europe; a cause in which, if in any cause it were lawful to bear arms, it was lawful and honourable to fight. I speak not, however, of that particular war, but of war generally-of such wars as have hitherto, almost without exception, prevailed in our world. They are an unutterable evil, a criminal atrocity. This fact is certified to the world by your Grace's own hand, in your

letter to General Cox, in which you state, that 66 war is a terrible evil, particularly to those who reside in those parts of the country which are the seat of the operations of hostile armies ;" and in your letter also to Baron Constant, in which you declare that the " new French system of war is the greatest evil that ever fell on the civilized world." Your despatches often speak in strong terms of the violence and wrong perpetrated by the French soldiery. This fact is but too well attested by many nations. Even their own countryman, Chateaubriand, speaking of the Revolutionary army, truly declares that they "displayed a degree of energy which was completely without example, and an extent of crimes, which all those of history, put together, can scarcely equal."* But there was order and consistency in their horrid procedure. They prepared themselves for the work of murder among surrounding nations, by a self-baptism in the blood of the best citizens of their own! Yes, even 'the public streets (of Paris) were so inundated with blood as to become impassable; and it became necessary to change the place of execution!"+ Chateaubriand himself has seen some of those modern cannibals with a piece of an adversary's heart dangling as a medal at the button-hole! But I need not remind your Grace, that the honour or the infamy of producing such a class of men was not peculiar to France. The race is as old as war itself. It is long since Tyrtæus taught the Spartans to sing, that

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"The man's unfit for war that cannot view,
With eye serene, the tide of human blood,
Yet burn to wreak his vengeance on the foe!"

The character of the work generally determines that of the operator, while they act reciprocally on each other. Now your Grace emphatically declares that the British army is "composed of the bad only." In your † Ibid. p. 50.

*On Revolution, p. 46.

"memorandum on the proposed plan for altering the discipline of the army," I find the following lamentable, but most truthful declaration :-" The man who enlists into the British army is, in general, the most drunken, and probably the worst man of the trade or profession to which he belongs, or of the village or town in which he lives. There is not one in a hundred of them, who, when enlisted, ought not to be put in the second or degraded class of any society or body into which they may be introduced." Again, in the evidence of your Grace, given" before the Royal Commission for inquiring into military punishments," you declare that "the British soldiers are taken entirely from the lowest orders of society," and that drunkenness is "the great parent of all crime" among them. Your Grace further declares, that so sunk and brutalised are they, that "there is no punishment which makes an impression upon any body except corporal punishment." Such is the British army! What must be the nature of war, the employment that such men prefer, and which such men alone can be found to perform? I say such men alone, for it is clearly brought out by your Grace's evidence, already referred to, that the choice is, such materials or none, ruffians or nobody! You frankly and positively declared that you knew of "no mode by which a better class of persons might be induced to enter into the army, under the present mode of voluntary enlistment." Your Grace declares that, even "if corporal punishments were abolished, and certain civil privileges given to such as had served in the army," you do not think it would "have the effect of producing a better class of persons in the army." No man who knows the true character of British society will dispute the accuracy of your conclusion. Your Grace, so early as 1809, had discovered that the English were not "a military people;" that "the whole business of an army upon service is foreign to their habits, and is a constraint upon them." In the

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