The Story of Wellington. Harold Wheeler
Читать онлайн книгу.
the Peishwah, for conciliating the feudatory Mahratta chiefs who maintained their allegiance to the Peishwah, for preserving the dominions of the Nizám, and our interests at Hyderabad, combined with his sieges of Ahmednuggur, Burrampur, and Asseerghur, his glorious and splendid victories at Assaye and on the plains of Argaum, with the entire ruin of Sindhia’s French troops and powerful artillery in the Deccan, must place the name of General Wellesley among the most bright and distinguished characters that have adorned the military history of the British power in India. He is now employed in reducing the main fortress of Perar, and in negotiating, with the utmost judgment and skill, the conditions of peace. I leave his merits to your justice, and to the judgment of his King and country. The pride and honour of being allied by the nearest ties of blood to such an officer cannot absolve me from the obligations of my public station, as the representative of the supreme civil and military authority in India; and I cannot, therefore, omit this testimony to the merits of General Wellesley without a positive violation of my duty.”21
Whatever may be thought of such glowing praise from a brother on the score of good taste, it evidently achieved its purpose, for before he left India, Arthur Wellesley was appointed an extra Knight Companion of the Bath and received the thanks of the King and Parliament.
Earl Roberts,22 in summing up this phase of the future Duke’s career, remarks: “On his arrival in India he found himself in a country where in almost every matter the power and influence of the Governor-General were supreme, and the Governor-General being his brother, he was quickly placed in a position of responsibility, which gave him the opportunity of developing his talents as a soldier and statesman in the best of all schools—the school of practice. It cannot be denied that in early life Wellington owed much to family influence,23 and to a system of promotion which would now be stigmatized as jobbery. On the other hand, he took full advantage of every chance that was thrown in his way, and by his industry and capacity fully justified the exceptional favour with which he was treated.”
With this conclusion the present writer heartily agrees; whatever Sir Arthur gained from his relative’s assistance was amply repaid in his achievements. British India owes much to the brothers Wellesley.
CHAPTER VI
Service in England, Ireland, and Denmark
(1805–7)
“I am not afraid of responsibility, God knows, and I am ready to incur any personal risk for the public service.”
When, in 1803, the short-lived Peace of Amiens came to an end, and Great Britain and France again resorted to the sword, Napoleon’s first feat of arms was the conquest of Hanover. Thus, at the very beginning of the second phase of the Great War, George III found himself not only minus his hereditary continental possessions, but deprived of a very useful base for those futile military excursions so beloved of the British Government.
That His Majesty received the tidings of his loss “with great magnanimity, and a real kingliness of mind,” may or may not be true. His ministers asserted that such was the case; considerations of policy would have precluded them from saying otherwise.
However this may be, two months after Sir Arthur Wellesley landed in England, that is to say, in November 1805, he was given the command of a brigade in an expedition to Hanover about to be undertaken by Lord Cathcart. The object was to rout the comparatively few French troops left to garrison the country, and to co-operate with Russian, Swedish, and Danish troops in ridding Germany of the common enemy. The surrender of Mack at Ulm, and Napoleon’s wonderful victory at Austerlitz, although it followed within a few weeks of Nelson’s signal triumph at Trafalgar,24 completely shattered this desirable object, just as the negotiations that followed put an end to the ambitious hopes of the Third Coalition. The recall of the troops before they had been able to carry out any of the objects of the diversion, beyond gaining some thousands of adherents to the rank and file, therefore became imperative, and was duly effected.
Sir Arthur Wellesley now spent a short time in command of his brigade at Hastings, and he was gazetted colonel of the famous 33rd Regiment, which post had become vacant on the death of the venerable Marquis Cornwallis, his brother’s successor in India. The next important event in his life, if not in his career, was his marriage to the Hon. Catherine Pakenham, thus consummating a romance begun many years before,25 and his single ambition apart from the Army. The ceremony was performed in Dublin on the 10th April 1806, the bridegroom being nearly thirty-seven years of age. One wishes it were possible to add that “they lived happy ever after.” Biography, the twin sister of History, tells us that it was not so, and Gleig suggests that a broken engagement with a second suitor, of which Wellesley was not informed on his return from India, was partly the cause.26 Two days after the wedding Wellesley was elected Member of Parliament for Rye, his main object in seeking political distinction being that he might defend his brother’s administration in India, where his system of making recalcitrant States subsidiary to England, whilst retaining their own rulers, was the subject of an embittered attack. The “high crimes and misdemeanours” alleged against Lord Wellesley were referred to from time to time, but on the 17th March 1808, the following motion was carried by 182 votes against 31: “That it appears to this House that the Marquis Wellesley, in his arrangements in the province of Oude, was actuated by an ardent zeal for the service of his country, and an anxious desire to promote the safety, interests, and prosperity of the British Empire in India.” This did not altogether end the unsavoury affair, for another unsuccessful attempt to incriminate the statesman was made some time later.
Sir Arthur was by this time Chief Secretary for Ireland, having been appointed in the previous year. Once again we see two members of this distinguished family holding prominent appointments, for Henry Wellesley became one of the Secretaries to the Treasury in the newly-appointed Portland ministry.
Barrington, whose acquaintance we have already made, relates an interesting anecdote of the soldier at this time. He met Lord Castlereagh, accompanied by a gentleman, in the Strand. “His lordship stopped me,” he writes, “whereat I was rather surprised, as we had not met for some time; he spoke very kindly, smiled, and asked if I had forgotten my old friend, Sir Arthur Wellesley? whom I discovered in his companion, but looking so sallow and wan, and with every mark of what is called a worn-out man, that I was truly concerned at his appearance. But he soon recovered his health and looks, and went as the Duke of Richmond’s27 secretary to Ireland, where he was in all material traits still Sir Arthur Wellesley, but it was Sir Arthur Wellesley judiciously improved. He had not forgotten his friends, nor did he forget himself. He said that he had accepted the office of secretary only on the terms that it should not impede or interfere with his military pursuits; and what he said proved true....”
Obviously his duties in Ireland bear no comparison with those he so successfully undertook in India, but following his own maxim, “to do the business of the day in the day,” he got through a vast amount of routine labour, frequently important, sometimes trivial. Under the former head we must put his investigation of the military defences of the island. It must not be forgotten that although the invasion of the United Kingdom by Napoleon was no longer a standing menace, there was always a likelihood of its resurrection, and Ireland was the danger zone.
The Peace of Tilsit, signed between France and Russia on the 7th July 1807, and between France and Prussia on the 9th of the same month, was a most serious blow to British interests. By a secret treaty the Emperor Alexander undertook to aid Napoleon against England if that Power refused to make peace within a certain period, to recognize the equality of all nations at sea, and to hand back the conquests made by her since 1805. As a bait—it really savoured of insult—Great Britain was to be offered Hanover. Should she refuse these terms the Autocrats of France and of Russia agreed to compel Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal to join them in a vast naval confederacy against Great Britain, and to close their ports against her. In addition, the reigning monarchs of Spain and Portugal were to be deposed in favour of
“The Life and Correspondence of the Right Honble. Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmouth,” by the Honble. George Pellew, D.D. (London, 1847), vol. ii. p. 242. In this connection see also “Wellington’s Dispatches,” vol. ii. pp. 335–36 n., and “Despatches, Minutes, and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, K.G.,” vol. iii. p. 543.
“The Rise of Wellington,” by Earl Roberts, V.C., p. 26.
“Personal interest was as much recognized in those days as the chief motor in military promotion, as seniority and merit are now.”—Sir Herbert Maxwell, vol. i. p. 67.
Shortly after his return from India Wellesley had his only interview with Nelson, an account of which is given in the author’s companion work, “The Story of Nelson,” pp. 113–4.
See
“Personal Reminiscences of the first Duke of Wellington” (Edinburgh 1904), p. 274.
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.