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the constitutional complaint; but universal regret; and seldom have its partial influence on the limbs the public services of one so near was followed by a mortification of the throne bequeathed to the coun• a considerable portion of the shin try so much solid and lasting good, of both legs, which, assuming some- as resulted from his long administimes a more favourable, and some- tration of the British army. His times a more alarming appearance, private character, frank, honourgradually weakened the frame and able, and sincere, was formed to constitution; as strength decayed, conciliate personal attachments; appetite and sleep departed, and a personal enemy he had never the increasing evil was therefore made, and a friend once gained, he to be met by impaired resources, had never lost. Failings there Amid weakness and agonizing pain, were: he was improvident in

pehe displayed the highest fortitude cuniary matters; his love of pleaand equanimity, attending to the sure, though it observed the decenmore important parts of his official cies, did not always respect the moduty, even till within a few days ralities of private life; and his of his death. He forgot all bodily errors, in that respect, had been sufferings, and the danger, which paraded in the public view by the it was not concealed from him at- labours of unwearying malice, and tended his state, to draw up with shameless unblushing profligacy. his own hand the heads of the But, in the failings of the duke of arrangement for the unexpected York, there was nothing that was armament which was despatched un-English, nothing that was unto Portugal in the beginning of princely; and those, whose own reDecember, 1826; and the last act Aections, while they enjoy the tranof his official life was obtaining, quillity of conscious virtue, tell when his majesty visited him on them likewise, through what diffithe 27th, the royal approbation of culties that tranquillity must be a proposed arrangement for the pursued, even in the more uniform promotion of the old subalterns of paths, and under the more sober the ariny.

On the 28th, the lights of private life, will most easily sacrament was administered to forgive the aberrations into which him, along with his sister the the less fortunate are seduced amid princess Sophia, by the hands of the devious paths and false and dazthe bishop of London, and, on zling glare of courtly temptation. the following day, he received Never was man more easy of acthe parting visit of his royal bro- cess, more fair and upright in his ther. Hope was now gone; the dealings, more affable, and even constitution had sunk beneath the simple, in his manners. Every one power of art to revive it ; nervous who had intercourse with him was fits, occasional attacks of faintness, impressed with the openness, sin

, spasms, and delirium, succeeded cerity, and kindness, which apeach other with increasing rapidity, peared in all his actions; and it till nature gave up the struggle, was truly said of him, that he and he expired on the 5th of Jan- never broke a promise, and never uary, 1827, being then in the sixty- deserted a friend.

Beloved by fourth year

those who enjoyed the honour of Never was the death of a prince his private intercourse, his admin accompanied by more sincere and nistration of a high public office

of his age.

had excited one universal sentiment of respect and esteem. In his youth, he had been tried as a general in the field; the campaigns in Flanders terminated in a retreat; but the duke-unexperienced as he was, at the head of an army which, abounding in valour, had yet much to learn in tactics, and compelled to act in concert with allies who were not always either unanimous or decided displayed many of the qualities of an able general, and nobly supported that high character for daring and dauntless courage which is the patrimony of his house. He was subsequently raised to the office of commanderin-chief of all his majesty's forces; that office he held for upwards of thirty-two years, and his administration of it did not merely improve, it literally created, an army. During his campaigns, he had felt keenly the abuses which disgraced its internal organization, and rendered its bravery ineffectual; he applied himself, with a soldier's devotion, to the task of removing them; he identified himself with the welfare and the fame of the service; he possessed great readiness and clearness of comprehension in discovering means, and great steadiness and honesty of purpose in applying them. By unceasing diligence, he gave to the common soldier comfort and respectability; the army ceased to be considered as a sort of pesthouse for the reception of moral lepers; discipline and regularity were exacted with unyielding strictness; the officers were raised by a gradual and well ordered system of promotion, which gave merit a chance of not being pushed aside to make way for mere ignorant rank and wealth. The head

as well as the heart of the soldier took a higher pitch; the best man in the field was the most welcome at the Horse Guards; there was no longer even a suspicion that unjust partiality disposed of commissions, or that peculation was allowed to fatten upon the spoils of the men; the officer knew that one path was open to all, and the private felt that his recompense was secure. The spirit thus produced soon showed its effects in the field. Before the present century, the military exertions of Britain on the continent, had been confined to the furnishing of small contingents, and even many of the expeditions in the earlier part of the revolutionary war had possessed perhaps by far too much of that character: we had never placed an army in the field which was not merely an auxiliary, and sometimes no very important one, of some military potentate in whose legions it swallowed up.

was

But, from 1808, we assumed a more independent and imposing position; our success was miraculous; the British armies appeared in Spain as perfect in all matters of discipline and equipment, as full of confidence in themselves and in their leaders, as if the means of military success had for centuries been cultivated by the country equally with naval power; and, in every field, the accumulated laurels of twenty years of victory over all the other nations of Europe were wrested triumphantly from the armies of France. With this immortal story the name of the duke of York is as inseparably connected as is the fame of any captain who led our squadrons to battle: it was he, whose ever-vigilant attention had formed the armies that tram

man

pled down the military opposition personage ought to mix himself of every hostile country into which up as little as possible in parliathey had marched, while their dis- mentary debate; for he must excipline gained the good-will even pect to have his sentiments canof invaded provinces.

vassed like those of any other parThe duke of York possessed the liamentary orator, and the gloss of further merit, that, while he wield- dignity may be partly marred in ed this powerful arm, and all the the encounter; but, on the other patronage which the command of hand, it is only vulgar prejudice it bestowed, he neither allowed that can decry a prince because he the distribution of that patronage publicly declares his sentiments to be affected by political party on great questions which concern spirit, nor exposed himself to the no less the rights of the people jealousy which might have been than the prerogative of the Crown. excited, in minds very sensitive to in the debate on the Catholic theoretical danger to the consti- question in 1825, he had declared tution, by the frequent interference his reasonable and conscientious of the head of the army in matters hostility to the Catholic claims, of mere political discussion. At with a sincerity which no no period since the revolution, has questioned, and a plainness which party spirit run higher than during was worthy of all respect. Yet the greater period of his career : for this manly expression of his his own opinions upon general sentiments as a British peer, on a politics were neither fickle nor matter which touched, more vitally concealed, but they never inter- than any other, the constitution of fered with the strict impartiality the people over whom he might of his office; men of all parties one day be called to rule, the allowed, that the differences of trashy orators of the associated their political sentiments neither Irish agitators had lavished upon favoured nor impeded the progress him all the abuse in which the of themselves or of their relations dictionary of vulgar malevolence in the army. The rank of his is so rich, and had even expressed royal highness, which brought him a fiendish exultation at the proso near the throne, saved him from gress of the wasting and painful the necessity of supporting himself disease which was leading him to by too intimate an union with the the

With ill-assumed luministers of the day: he kept him- gubriousness they now pretended self and his office separate from to join the voice of universal rethe discussions of the cabinet. gret which arose from every quarter Possessing very fair talents, a clear of the British islands. The solstraight-forward understanding, dier, indeed, followed his bier as carefully cultivated by education, that of the benefactor to whom he and equally free from subtlety and had been indebted for comfort, pedantry, his own political opin- security, and respectability; but ions were those of a sensible, mo- scarcely less did all other ranks derate-minded, constitutional, man; of the community mourn with and he did not shrink, when the affectionate sorrow over the loss of occasion seemed to call for it, from a prince whose personal qualities avowing them with manliness and had always been popular, and to sincerity, Undoubtedly, & royal whom, in his public capacity, they

grave.

.

:

felt that the empire owed a heavy party, and he was not to be shaken debt of gratitude for all that he from it by a change of ministry: had effected for its safety and its he, therefore, had no motive to fame.

use his patronage for the purpose There was little room for hesi- of supporting a cabinet as if his tation in selecting a successor for own power had depended upon its his royal highness as commander- prosperity. But this is only an in-chief: there was only one man additional reason why every arin whom personal merit and the rangement ought to be avoided fullest confidence of the country which may lend facilities to the were united. Military fame, habits operation of such a motive; and, of business, and long practical as a man's anxiety to serve and acquaintance with every depart- support a ministry will always ment of the army, placed the duke increase with the extent to which of Wellington, already master- he is dependent upon them, so general of the ordnance, beyond will the temptation to employ his the reach of competition ; he was patronage for the political benefit called to the head of the army of them and of himself. which had so often followed him Parliament met, pursuant to adto victory in the field. The only journment, on the 8th of February, objection uttered against the ap- and one of its earliest measures pointment was direeted, not against was to vote an address of condolence his fitness to be commander-in- to the king, on the death of his chief, for on that all men were royal brother. Lord Liverpool agreed, but on the fitness and ex- moved it in the House of Lords, pediency of his continuing to hold, and Mr. Peel in the Commons along with that office, his former (February 12); in the latter seat in the cabinet. There were House, it was seconded by Mr. those who traced, and justly, the Brougham. All political asperity impartiality which pervaded every was forgotten in an unanimous expart of the duke of York's admi- pression of respect for the private nistration, in a great degree to his character, and official conduct of want of official political connection the deceased. Mr. Peel said, that with the ministry. He was no he would studiously abstain from party to their measures of state ; touching any point which might strictly speaking, he was a servant, excite discordant opinions or angry and could not be a colleague ; he feelings; but he was confident that was intrusted with the welfare every man, whatever might be his of the military service alone, and political sentiments, would wilto aspirants to military favour on linglyjoin in expressing deep sorrow the ground of political services, for the death of an illustrious he could always reply, that to him prince, who had executed a high no political services could be ren- office, and fulfilled an important dered, and that he had no interests trust, with great talent and unto cherish but that of the army. tainted impartiality, and in testi. It cannot be denied, however, that fying deep sympathy with his mathis independence was rather to be jesty on the loss of a brother, who, ascribed to the rank of the royal after having been his play-mate, duke; he had not been brought had been the most faithful and into his office as the adherent of a useful of his servants, and who, on his death-bed, could justly console the duke had conferred upon the hinself with the reflection that he army, it would be necessary to go had never abandoned a friend, or through many details of various resented an injury. Laboured regulations connected with relipanegyrics on departed princes were gious duties, with military schools, better suited to despotic coun- with points of discipline, and with tries, than to those where the the security of fair hopes of promohuman mind grew up in robust tion to every man in the service. and healthy freedom ; but he was But it was sufficient to recollect, confident he did not transgress the that, while the duke of York held truth, when he said, that the duke the office of commander-in-chief, of York possessed qualities which every man knew that justice would eminently fitted him for the disa be done him: and it was by this, charge of his high duty, and had and not by the minute regulations lost no opportunity of turning them of discipline, that the English army to advantage in the discharge of had obtained that plastic energy that duty; that, as commander in which distinguishes the free soldier chief, he had improved the disci- from another. During the long pline, and raised the moral charac- period, during the ten thousand ter of the army. No man was days, in which the duke of York capable of appreciating what he had been in office, he (Mr. Peel) had effected in his capacity of com- did not think that one of those days mander-in-chief, who had not had passed without his devoting made himself acquainted with the some portion of it to the business state, the discipline, and the con- of his official situation. No letter stitution of the army, when the ever came to the office, which, if it duke entered upon his office, as had a signature, was not read and well as with its state, when death attended to. Individuals might removed him from his command. frequently have mistaken the pro"I

can never forget," said Mr. Peel, per quarter to which their applica“the last words which I heard from tions should be addressed ; but even the royal prince, only nine days be in these cases a civil answer was fore his death. When he received the always returned, accompanied by a news of a part of our troops having direction to the applicant respectlanded at Lisbon, he exclaimed, in ing the department to which he a faint, but triumphant, voice, I ought to apply. The impartiality wish that the country could com- of the royal duke had always been pare the state of the brigade which the theme of applause in that has landed at Lisbon in 1827, with House, whenever his disposal of the state of the brigade which promotions had been brought under landed at Ostend in 1794.” These its notice. On the augmentation were the last words which I heard of the army in 1825, the only from the living lips of the duke lieutenants who were promoted of York." The duke had been were senior lieutenants; no inforty-six years a soldier, and when terest was allowed to interfere in he came into office, he had declared, this, and the only exception to the that no man should for the future rule which the duke had here laid labour under the disadvantages down, was one which reflected any which he had had to contend with. thing but dishonour. It was in To enumerate all the benefits which the case of a lieutenant of the year

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