so lost his head, that
everybody imagined the Duke would treat what he said with silent
contempt." Greville utterly condemns Lord Winchilsea for having made the
attack on the Duke, and for not having sent an apology when it was first
required of him, but he adds: "I think, having committed the folly of
writing so outrageous a letter, he did the only thing a man of honor
could do in going out and receiving a shot and then making an apology,
which he was all this time prepared to do, for he had it ready written in
his pocket." Most of us at this time of day would be inclined to think
that if Lord Winchilsea was willing to make the apology and had it ready
written in his pocket, he might have acted according to a better code of
honor by not exposing the Duke to the chance of killing him. However, we
must not expect too much from Greville, and it is well to know, as his
final verdict on the whole affair, that "I think the Duke ought not to
have challenged him; it was very juvenile, and he stands in far too high
a position, and his life is so much _publica cura_ that he should have
treated him and his letter with the contempt they merited." The King, it
seems, approved of the Duke of Wellington's conduct in making the letter
the subject of a challenge and meeting his opponent in a duel. Greville
goes on to remark that somebody said "the King would be wanting to fight
a duel himself," whereupon some one else observed, "He will be sure to
think that he has fought one."

The Duke of Wellington had a great deal to trouble him after the passing
of the Catholic Relief Bill. There was great distress all over the
country, and the discontent was naturally in proportion to the distress.
Wellington had lost much of his popularity with the more extreme members
of his own party, who could not lift their minds to an understanding of
the reasons which had compelled him to change his old opinions on the
Catholic question. It cannot be doubted, too, that he sometimes felt
disappointed {84} with the results which were following from his policy
towards Ireland. Members of his own party were continually dinning into
his ears their declaration that the measure passed in favor of the Roman
Catholics had not put a stop to agitation in Ireland, and that, on the
contrary, O'Connell was now beginning to agitate for a repeal of the Act
of Union. At that time, as at all times, the opponents of any great act
of justice were eager to make out th