receiving the most substantial proofs. On the 16th of October, he was gazetted in succession to his friend the Duke of Richmond, who had died in Canada, to the appointment of Governor of Plymouth. On the division of the Waterloo prize-money, in June, 1819, the share to which he became entitled was 60,000l. The general officers received 1,2507. each; field officers, 4207.; captains, 907.; subalterns, 331.; serjeants, 91.; rank and file, 27. 10s. The Crown had almost exhausted upon him the titles and places of honour at its command; but what it had further to bestow was conferred the instant the respective vacancies occurred. Some of his posts, that of Master-General, for example, were attended both with labour and responsibility; but his methodical habits, early hours, and untiring application, enabled him to get through more business with ease to himself in a day, than some of his brother officials could accomplish in a week. The only service-tenure attached to the national gift of the estate of Strathfieldsaye, was the annual presentation, on the 18th June, of a small tricoloured flag to the sovereign. This symbol, corresponding to a similar token presented by the Duke of Marlborough, is always suspended in the armoury of Windsor Castle, where the entire collection has been deposited in perpetual commemoration of Blenheim and Waterloo. On the 19th February, 1820, the Duke of Wellington was appointed Colonel in Chief of the Rifle Brigade.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Duke of Wellington at Home-His Political Administration-Concession of the Roman Catholic Claims, and rejection of the Reform Bill-Decline of his Popularity, and retirement from Office-Ingratitude of the Irish Party-His Death.

ABOUT this time, the Duke began to take a more active part in politics than he had hitherto done. The seeds of those great changes which the political soil of England had been so well prepared to receive, had now begun to germinate. The Tory Cabinet of Lord Liverpool which had subsisted for nearly ten years, with very little modification, had now received an infusion of new blood. The Duke of Wellington was from principle

and education a Conservative of the old school, with a wholesome dread of democratic encroachment, to which, indeed, he attributed the necessity for most of the battles he had fought. Although ostensibly opposed to all reform, he was by no means practically so. In reply to one of the periodical attacks of Mr. Hume on the Duke, Mr. Ward stated to the House of Commons, that in the two years during which his Grace had been Master-General of the Ordnance, he had abolished no fewer than sixty-eight useless offices, with a saving to the public of 14,000l. His first enquiry when a post became vacant was, "Can this place be abolished?"

We have already seen that on his first appearance in Parliament, he expressed some degree of sympathy with the Roman Catholics. He was therefore evidently a reformer in a modified sense of the term, without being himself aware of the fact. In those days of unqualified Toryism, however, the accession to the Cabinet of such men as Canning and Huskisson was well calculated to startle him; whilst the feverish state of the country was moreover of a kind to quicken his apprehension of democratic tendencies. The people had been seduced by the artifices of unprincipled demagogues into gross excesses and most extravagant demands, and a plot had actually been formed to assassinate the whole of the Cabinet Ministers, and proclaim a republic. The severity with which these excesses were met, added to, rather than diminished their number. The soothing system had as yet never been tried; and wise and generous as the Duke had proved himself on many occasions, he seemed altogether averse from its application. Had the monarch been favourable to a more liberal policy, it is highly probable that the Duke's adhesion would have been readily given. As Master-General of the Ordnance, he had taken his seat in the Cabinet; had concurred in the proceedings against Queen Caroline; and had let fall some tolerably hard hits on the heads of his old opponents, the Whigs. But he was soon destined to take a still more active part against them.

On the 22nd October, 1822, having assisted at the obsequies of his lamented friend the Marquis of Londonderry, the Duke of Wellington repaired to Vienna to take part in the Congress of Sovereigns which was to take place in that city, and to which he was the only foreign plenipotentiary

admitted. This was the tenth assembly of the kind which had been held since that of Reichenbach in Silesia, in 1790, and the objects of all of them professed to be the same, namely, the maintenance of the integrity of every European kingdom, and the security of their thrones to their legitimate sovereigns. Mr. Canning had succeded the Marquis of Londonderry as Foreign Secretary, and the instructions of the Duke had of course been derived from him. One of the questions which the Congress was called upon to consider, was whether or not Ferdinand of Spain should be left uncontrolled, to establish a ferocious despotism. Austria and Prussia sympathised with the enslaved Spaniards. The Emperor of Russia was of a different opinion. The Duke of Wellington, on behalf of England, advocated peace and non-intervention. His advice was tacitly followed; and on the dissolution of the Congress, in the middle of December, his Grace proceeded to Paris to mediate in the matter. The French Court was, in the mean time, pursuing its plans in a most disingenuous manner, with a view to destroy the semblance of liberty in Spain. On the 27th of the month, the large corps which had been assembled on the frontier professedly as a sanitary cordon, to prevent the extension of the fever then raging at Barcelona, was changed by the French minister, M. Vilelle, into an army of observation; and the spirit of the minister's directions was, that if Spain hesitated to alter her political Constitution, France should employ force to disabuse her of her revolutionary tendencies. The French King professed a disposition to be guided by the advice of the Duke of Wellington; but no sooner had he quitted the country on his return home, than, in a pompous speech to the Chambers, his Majesty did not scruple to announce that 100,000 Frenchmen, commanded by the Duke D'Angouleme, were ready to march on Spain for the purpose of "conquering a peace, which the then state of Spain would render impossible. The invasion of Spain for the purpose of putting down the constitutional principle, excited almost universal indignation in this country. The Duke of Wellington declared that he had acted in perfect conformity with his instructions. He had refused, on the part of England, to interfere in the internal affairs of Spain, and does not seem to have had an idea that the French Cabinet would have acted

with so much duplicity and bad faith. This new invasion of Spain, notwithstanding the detestation it had excited, was hastened on by the King; and on the 24th of May, the Spaniards were compelled to accept the degrading and enslaving terms offered by the fatuous and unprincipled Ferdinand.

On the death of the Duke of York, which occurred on the 5th of January, 1827, the Duke of Wellington was appointed General-Commanding-in-Chief, and Colonel of the 1st Grenadier Guards. The terms in which these appointments were conferred, greatly enhanced their value to the recipient. The conduct of the Duke of York to the army at large, had been such as to entitle him to its gratitude. He was, in reality, worthy in all respects of his designation of "the soldier's friend." Shortly after his death, the Duke of Wellington presided at a public meeting, held at the Freemasons' Hail, to take into consideration the propriety of erecting a monument to his illustrious predecessor; and he availed himself of the opportunity to express his deep sense of the services which the noble Duke had rendered to the army.

On the retirement from office of Lord Liverpool, in February, 1827, the King commissioned Mr. Canning to form a ministry; but he found that no fewer than seven of the late administration, including the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel, had tendered their resignations; and as the seven letters all reached him within a few hours of each other, he was led to infer that there had been an unfair combination against him. In this impression, and so far as the Duke and Mr. Peel were concerned, he was assuredly in error. Whatever their subsequent tendencies may have been, they were wholly indisposed, at that period, for either the concession of the Roman Catholic Claims, Parliamentary Reform, or Free Trade; all of which measures might fairly be looked for from a Canning administration.

In reply to a statement in the House of Lords, that the King had offered him the Premiership, the Duke of Wellington replied, "that the situation was one for which he was not qualified;" and that "he should have been worse than mad if he had thought of such a thing." It was wholly unnecessary that he should resign both the Horse Guards

and the Master-Generalship of the Ordnance; but he had been so irritated by the caustic tone of Mr. Canning's letter, that he made up his mind so to do. There can be no doubt that the Duke had conceived a personal prejudice against Mr. Canning; an impression which is strengthened by the fact, that the new premier somewhat under estimated the talents of his predecessor in the Foreign Office, who had been the warm friend and zealous ally of the noble Duke.

Exhausted by toil, and persecuted by his opponents in parliament, and still more by the press, Mr. Canning expired of a disease which was evidently the result of mental anxiety, in the fourth month of his office, and left the King and the government in greater difficulty than ever. The contemptible ministry of Lord Goderich succeeded, and expired at the end of the year of sheer inanition. The reform pear was not yet ripe, so that the King had no alternative but to send for the Duke of Wellington; and to the surprise of some of his friends, and the gratification of others, including a large majority of the public, he accepted the seals, and was enabled to form a tolerably strong Cabinet. He was, however, constrained to avail himself of the services of Mr. Huskisson, and four other of Mr. Canning's disciples. His great difficulties were the questions of religious disabilities, reform, and free trade-demands for all of which, in one shape or other, had begun to be entertained by a considerable portion of the public out of doors.

That the Duke of Wellington was at this particular juncture conscientiously opposed to all these measures, cannot for a moment be denied. The motion for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, the natural prelude to the Irish Emancipation Bill, proposed by Lord John Russell, was carried against the government by a majority of forty-four votes; and whatever might have been his private convictions in the matter, the Duke was induced to accept it, and carry it through the House of Lords. A month afterwards, he was persuaded, at whatever sacrifice of his private opinions, to consent to Mr. Huskisson's Corn Bill, and thereby admit, to some extent, the principle of free trade. On the question of parliamentary reform, however, under the guise of a proposal to disfranchise Penryn and East Retford, and