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[Illustration: FIELD MARSHAL HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, K.G.
COMMANDER IN CHIEF &c. &c. &c.]
With a Biographical Memoir,
"Cujus gloriae neque profuit quisquam laudando, nec vituperando quisquamnocuit."
1845.
* * * * *
So many works have already appeared of which the Duke of Wellington hasbeen the subject, that an explanation is due to the public on theoccasion of adding one more to the number.
That explanation consists in the fact, that those works have been almostexclusively occupied with the military exploits of the Duke, whichrendered him so illustrious during the first twenty years of his publiclife; while his political career, which may be said to have constituteda second life, distinct and different from the other, has beencomparatively neglected.
To meet the want thus left unsatisfied, the Editor of the followingpages has endeavoured to supply materials, by which a just estimate maybe formed of the Duke of Wellington's claims as a minister and as astatesman.
The volume will be found to contain the Duke's deliberate opinions as amember of the House of Peers, and, during many years, as a minister,upon the great questions which have agitated the public mind since thecommencement of the present century.
If there are those who hold the Duke of Wellington in light estimationas a politician, they will not continue to entertain that opinion, theEditor believes, after having dispassionately read the extracts of whichthis work is composed.
Interspersed with the Duke's more elaborate OPINIONS, will be found hisMAXIMS on public policy, which, though few and unpretending, may be saidto have sunk into the national mind.
The Editor has added a few remarkable sentences and passages from thedispatches of the Duke; with a cursory memoir of his life, which becomesmore elaborate from the commencement of his political career; and hasalso attempted to portray some of his characteristics, as a soldier andas a civilian.
LONDON, February, 1845.
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, is the fourth son of Garret,
second Earl of Mornington, by Anne, the eldest daughter of Arthur Hill,
Viscount Dungannon. He was borne at Dangan Castle, in the county of
Meath, Ireland, on the 1st of May, 1769.
As in the case of many of the chief nobility and landholders in Ireland,the ancestors of the Duke were scions of an English house—the Colleys(afterwards Cowley), two of whom, named Walter and Robert Colley,proceeded to Ireland in the reign of Henry VIII., and located themselvesin the County of Kilkenny. The two brothers were lawyers by profession,and in the year 1531, were invested with the office of Clerk of theCrow