e thought very good, and
promising better and more decisive results. After breakfast they
went shooting.

[19] The Duke expressed no such opinion in either of his
speeches on Canada (February 4th).

[Page Head: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AT BURLEIGH.]

I walked out and joined the Duke, who talked to me for I dare say
an hour and a half about his Spanish campaigns, and most
interesting it was. I told him that the other day Allen[20] had
asked me to find somebody, a military man, to review the
Wellington Despatches in the 'Edinburgh Review,' and that he had
suggested Sir George Murray as the fittest person if he would
undertake it; that I had accordingly spoken to Fitzroy Somerset,
who had agreed to apply to Murray; and, if Murray would not do
it, I begged him to turn in his mind what officer could be found
equal to such a task, and I then asked the Duke if he knew of
anybody. He seemed amazingly pleased at the idea, said he knew
nobody, but Murray was the fittest man. From this he began to
talk, and told me a great deal of various matters, which I wish I
could have taken down as it fell from his lips. I was amused at
the simplicity with which he talked of the great interest of
these Despatches, just as he might have done if they had been the
work of any other man; said he had read them himself with
considerable astonishment and great interest, and that everybody
might see that there was not one word in them that was not
strictly and literally true. He said of his generals, 'that in
the beginning they none of them knew anything of the matter, that
he was obliged to go from division to division and look to
everything himself down to the minutest details.' I said, 'What
on earth would have happened if anything had befallen you?' He
laughed and said, 'I really do not know. There was a great deal
of correspondence about my successor at the time Sir Thomas
Graham went home.[21] I was against having any second in command,
which was quite useless, as nobody could share the responsibility
with me. However, afterwards Graham came back, and then there was
Hope next to him.' He said, 'Hill had invariably done well,
always exactly obeyed my orders, and executed them successfully.'
The fall of Badajoz was a great blow to him, but he did not know
that it was by an act of treachery. The Spanish Government
perhaps did not believe that he was approaching to relieve the
place, but it was a most curious fact, that whereas i