was to be made. This was
on Friday the 1st, in the evening; and what affronted them
was, that after having had such a task committed to them, the
Prince should have presumed to take a counter resolution by
himself without first consulting them."

This is a characteristic trait of the Duke of Wellington's way of
getting through, business.

"He was fond of relating, that soon after the Duke's
appointment, he was leaving his office at the usual hour,
when, on coming out at the Park entrance, he perceived his new
chief just in the act of getting on horseback. He went up to
the Duke, and mentioned that there were some matters connected
with the department on which he would like to communicate
with him when he had time. 'No time like the present,' said
the Duke, and, at once dismissing his horse, returned with
Mr. Ward into the Ordnance Office. There, then, he remained
closeted with the Duke till past eight, listening to and
answering his pertinent queries upon manifold points connected
with the department. From that moment the Duke appeared to be
au fait of the business in hand, and ready to cope with the
details as they from time to time presented themselves."

The Duke seems to have been more alarmed at the state of the nation
about 1819 than the nature of the case justified; deceived, probably,
by the official "reports" of Messrs. Castles and Co. The following
remark, however, exhibits his penetration:

"He said, if the rising broke out anywhere, it would be
at Glasgow and Paisley; where many rich merchants and all
they supported would be sure to suffer, while no one could
certainly foretell how soon it might be put down. This led
him to his favorite notion, that the loyal should be taught
to rely more upon themselves, and less upon the Government,
in their own defense against the disloyal. It was this, he
thought, that formed and kept up a national character: while
every one was accustomed to rely upon the Government, upon a
sort of commutation for what they paid to it, personal energy
went to sleep, and the end was lost: that in England, he
observed, every man who had the commonest independence, one,
two, five or six hundred, or a thousand a year, had his own
little plan of comfort--his favorite personal pursuit, whether
his library, his garden, his hunting, or his farm, which he