We cannot be sur

more active part of his wonderful career. prised at Colonel Wellesley's mortification. He had given up a lucrative and highly important office at Mysore, to take command, as he hoped, of this expedition, whatever its destination; and then, scarcely appreciating the very delicate position of the GovernorGeneral, he considered himself very hardly used and in some measure disgraced in being superseded in that command at the last moment, after he had laboured so hard in the work of preparation. But it must be remembered, on the other hand, that he had not at that time acquired the high reputation which his subsequent services* in India earned for him. If Lord Mornington † had sent him as a Colonel in command of so important an expedition, might he not have been accused of fraternal partiality by Generals in India as well as by the home Government? Previous heart-burnings on the same subject had not been wanting, and General Baird was certainly not the man to be passed over for a third time.

Having, however, spoken out his mind on the subject, Colonel Wellesley corresponded cordially with General Baird, and was preparing to precede him to the Red Sea when he was struck down by fever. We may add, that in writing at this time to his brother Henry, he said, 'You will have seen how much this resolution will annoy me; but I have never had much value for the public spirit of any man who does not sacrifice his private views and convenience, when it is necessary.'

We would here observe that mental emotions of a particular class appear on several occasions to have had a striking effect on our hero's bodily health. The Iron Duke was more than once prostrated by sickness in the earlier part of his career, when subjected to annoyance and anxiety about his own success in life, though he bore public responsibilities and exertions, physical and mental, so lightly at other times.

In 1796, disheartened with his profession and his apparent prospects-dejected after the campaign in the Low Countriesunable to obtain an appointment sufficiently lucrative to admit of his quitting the army-and driven back by heavy gales and

Supplementary Despatches,' vol. ii. p. 315. Lord Wellesley writes to Colonel Wellesley, Dec. 1, 1800:-'Great jealousy will arise among the general officers in consequence of my employing you; but I employ you because I rely on your good sense, discretion, activity, and spirit, and I cannot find all those qualities in any other officer in India who could take such a command.' And again (p. 324) on the 21st Dec. If circumstances should ultimately determine me to attempt the expedition to Egypt, that attempt will require so large a force as to occasion the necessity of my employing some one or two of his Majesty's General Officers now in India.'

↑ Who had now become Marquess Wellesley.

with some losses from the West Indian expedition-he was too ill to embark with his regiment for India. He suffered no bad effects from the heat and hardships of his Indian campaigns; but he now succumbed again, on losing the command of the Egyptian expedition, to a bad attack of fever.* And subsequently, as we shall see, he fretted so much to return to England and embark in a European in place of an Indian career, that his bodily health became seriously affected, though his vigour returned to him almost as soon as his mind was made up and his object attained. But how little did he know with all his sagacity what was best for the furtherance of his own views and prospects in life! Baird's expedition came to nothing, in consequence of the delays which necessarily attended it, and the victories of Nelson and Abercrombie. He only reached Rosetta as the French were treating for the evacuation of Alexandria. Wellesley returned to Mysore to persuade his brother to remain at his post after the loss of his supporter, Mr. Dundas, from the Board of Control -to conduct a series of brilliant operations, and to establish British empire over a large part of the Indian Peninsula. After returning to Seringapatam, in May, 1801, he received his commission as major-general; and a vacancy occurring on the staff of the Madras Presidency, he was enabled to remain in charge of his province till his return to England in 1805.

Mr. Gleig says:

It

"To those who lived on terms of any intimacy with the Duke, there was nothing so agreeable as to get him, when in a communicative mood, on the subject of his campaigns. He expressed himself with such clearness and entire simplicity, that a child could understand, while a philosopher admired, and became instructed by him. seemed, likewise, as if his Indian wars, perhaps because they were the first in which he had an opportunity to control and direct large operations, had made the strongest impression on his memory.' And he gives us a description, purporting to be in the Duke's own words, of the famous battle of Assaye:

"Of the battle of Assaye, he used to say, that it was the hardest fought affair that ever took place in India. "If the enemy had not neglected to guard a good ford on the Kaitna, I don't know how we could have got at him; but, once aware of his neglect, I took care that he should not have time to remedy it. We passed the river in one column and then deployed. Unfortunately my first line, which had been directed to keep clear of Assaye, swayed to the right, and became

*On this occasion his brother Henry wrote to him, April 22, 1801-' I am really very much distressed by your letter of the 21st, because you seem to feel your situation so sensibly that nothing I can say will afford you any consolation, and I fear that the present state of your mind may be of material injury to your health.'

exposed

exposed to a heavy fire of musketry* in that direction. This obliged me to bring the second line sooner into action than I intended, and to employ the cavalry-the 19th Dragoons-early in the day, in order to save the 74th from being cut to pieces. But whatever mistakes my officers committed, they more than made up for by their bravery. I lost an enormous number of men: 170 officers were killed and wounded, and upwards of 2000 non-commissioned officers and privates; but we carried all before us. We took their guns, which were in the first line, and were fired upon by the gunners afterwards, who threw themselves down, pretending to be dead, and then rose up again after our men had passed; but they paid dearly for the freak. 19th cut them to pieces. Scindia's infantry behaved admirably; they were in support of his cannon, and we drove them off at the point of the bayonet. We pursued them as long as daylight lasted, and the exhausted state of the men and horses would allow, and slept on the field.""

The

Mr. Gleig intersperses his work with many portions of conversations, or descriptions, or opinions, from the Duke's lips; but the effect, as might be expected, is generally disappointing. We have selected the one just cited as one of the best instances; but the practice is hardly fair; and speaking was never the Duke's forte. No man can be expected always to talk like a book; and to ensure strict accuracy in pages of conversation, it would be necessary to employ a short-hand writer. The following extract from another conversation shows, if it be trustworthy, what good use he made of his habits of observation, and how the fate of a battle may turn upon the display of such qualities in simple matters by a commanding officer:

'There was one band in particular, under a very daring leader, which gave us a good deal of trouble. The fellow broke into the Deccan, defeated the Nizam's troops, and was growing formidable, when I set out in search of him. I was suffering at the time from boils, a not uncommon complaint by-the-by in India, and riding was disagreeable, but I got upon my horse, and, after a march of sixty miles, ascertained that he had managed to put a river between him and me, which the guides assured me was impassable. We pushed on across a large plain, and presently saw the river, which certainly had no bridges upon it, and looked very much as if it were too deep for

* Mr. Gleig makes a mistake here. It was the heavy fire of the enemy's cannon, not of his musketry, that caused so much havoc amongst Wellesley's troops. He says in his despatch, 24th Sept. 1803 (Gurwood, vol. i. p. 324)—' We attacked them immediately, and the troops advanced under a very hot fire from cannon, the execution of which was terrible. The picquets of the infantry and the 74th Regiment, which were on the right of the first and second lines, suffered particularly from the fire of guns on the left of the enemy's position near Assye.' See also the Mem. vol. i. p. 390, Gurwood, &c., and Lieutenant, afterwards Sir Colin, Campbell's account, Supplementary Despatches,' vol. iv. p. 184; also General Wellesley to Colonel Munro, Supplementary Despatches,' vol. iv. p. 210. fording

fording. I noticed, however, that two villages stood directly opposite to one another, looking like a single village with a stream running through, and I said to myself, "These people would not have built in this manner, unless there were some means of communication from side to side." I made no halt, therefore, and found, sure enough, that a very good ford allowed the inhabitants of one village to visit their neighbours in the other village at all hours of the day. We crossed by that ford greatly to the disgust of our guides, who intended the robbers to get away; and, overtaking the marauders, we attacked ard dispersed them, taking all their guns and baggage. I knew that, without guns and broken up as they were, they would be cut to pieces in detail by the armed villagers, and it was so.'

But that which follows in the same conversation is a striking instance of the danger of the system. One principle of General Wellesley's campaign against the Mahrattas was to choose a season of the year when the rivers were not fordable. He says at p. 140, vol. i., Gurwood,' in his report to the GovernorGeneral: First, because if we are to have a war, we shall carry it on with great advantage during the rainy season.' And again, at p. 169, in a letter to General Stuart, the rivers that rise from the Western Ghauts will soon fill; crossing them, to the native armies, will be dangerous, if not impracticable, but safe and easy to the British forces.' He then made use of boats and pontoons, with which his enemies were unprovided; and his despatches contain minute directions for the construction of pontoons

*

The following references to, and quotations from, the Supplementary Despatches,' show how General Wellesley in the course of his campaigns against Dhoondiah in 1800, and against the Mahrattas in 1803, first collected boats, then experienced the want of, and afterwards employed, bridge-equipments for the transport of his troops across the rivers. At p. 317, vol. i., he begs Captain Malcolm to see that boats are prepared for the passage of the river. At p. 519 he says to Colonel Sartorius-These rivers are not fordable during the rainy season. It will be proper to have a jungar upon each of them, platformed as is that between Tellicherry and Cotaparamba .. and it will be proper that a certain number of boats, platforms, &c., should be laid up in Cotaparamba.' At pp. 538, 576, he mentions to Colonel Stevenson and Colonel Pater that he has given directions that a large number of boats may be collected at Hoonelly, and that it will be necessary to protect them. At p. 91, vol. ii., he tells Colonel Stevenson 'to halt also somewhere near Cadnully till some boats to pass your corps over can be got together.' At p. 96 he writes to the Governor of Bombay, 9th August, 1800 (while still chasing Dhoondiah)- He is on the left bank of the Malpoorba. A detachment is now employed in crossing that river, and I am here constructing boats for the same purpose which I propose to use at Sungoly.' At p. 133 he writes to General Brathwaite, 13th August, 1800-It would be of considerable advantage to warfare in these countries if the army were provided with pontoons. If you approve of the idea, I could easily get some made at Seringapatam. If I had had pontoons on the Malpoorba, Dhoondiah could not have escaped; and it is inconceivable the advantage they would give us over all the native armies.' At p. 506, vol. iii., he writes to General Stuart from Seringapatam, 31st December, 1802- It will be necessary that you should look forward to the establishment of

boats

pontoons and basket-boats, and bridges, as well as for the protection of ferries. But in direct continuation of the conversationextract above quoted, Mr. Gleig remarks to him: The rivers must have puzzled you at times, for you probably did not carry pontoons with you;' and he makes the poor Duke reply:

'No; we had no pontoons in those days. We crossed the rivers either by fords, or when these failed us by bridges resting upon inflated skins. In fact, we made war pretty much as Alexander the Great seems to have done, and as all men must do in such a country as India then was.' 'It was thus that the Duke used to speak of his own operations against the Mahrattas, and of his Indian wars generally.'

It is highly improbable that such a mistake could have been made by the Duke himself. It is equally out the question that Mr. Gleig should have invented a conversation directly contrary to the facts of the case, and to the principles involved in the particular war referred to. Although the Duke certainly had not cylindrical pontoons of the kind now in use, yet he took great pains to obtain, and evidently did obtain, pontoons of a different kind, and he unquestionably made large use of basketboats covered with skins. Rafts resting on inflated skins have been employed in the East time out of mind,—indeed there is reason to believe that they were used by the Sikhs in their latest struggle with the British army,-and Sir Howard Douglas tells us in his work on military bridges that he was prepared to use rafts of that kind, if necessary, in Spain; but we do not find any evidence of the Duke's troops in India having availed themselves of such an expedient.

boats on each of the rivers Toombuddra, Werdah, Malpoorba, Gutpurba, and Kistna, in the beginning of the month of June; and I had turned my mind to Capt. Cunningham as the officer to superintend these establishments. He did this duty before for me, and understands it. At pp. 54-56, vol. iv., he writes to Major Doolan on the 27th March, 1803-The sooner we begin to make boats to keep up our communication the better, and I look to the Station of Hallihall and to the Province of Soundah for a large supply. The number which I shall require from thence, to be placed on the rivers which I shall mention hereafter, is forty basket boats.' He adds a detailed memorandum respecting the construction of such boats, which are made of bamboo lath, jungle wood (the best is called Souri, a tough thorn) country rope, leather.' At p. 30 he writes from Poonah, 14th May, 1803, to General Nicholls-The rivers will fill between the 14th and 20th June, and at that time we ought to have the bridge in order to be able to carry on the war in any style..... I should think that, if all the hands in the marine yard were applied to this object only for the next fortnight or three weeks (and they cannot have a more important one), it might still be possible to supply the pontoons in good time. At pp. 88, 89, he considers, in a letter to Colonel Dallas, 19th May, 1803, the mode in which these pontoons will be fixed in the rivers,' and the carriages on which they will be conveyed; and asks respecting their weights when loaded, and the number of bullocks which will be required to draw them.' At pp. 106, 107, and 109, he writes further on the 5th June, the 9th June, and the 10th June to Mr. Jonathan Duncan on the same subjects.

We