uniary means.
Neither at school, nor college, nor in the performance of the easy
regimental duty peculiar to a time of peace, and incidental to five
exchanges, did he display any of those qualities which developed
themselves in so remarkable a manner a few years later.

"Previous to obtaining his company, Lieutenant Wellesley was returned a
member of the Irish parliament. He sat for three years, during a portion
of which time he was an aide-de-camp to the Earl of Westmoreland, then
Lordlieutenant of Ireland.

"The young member occasionally spoke, always in opposition to liberal
measures; and his oratory was characterised more by a curt and decided
form of expression than by the efflorescence then popular among the
Grattans, Cuffs, Parnells, and other members of the legislature. His
opinions were of the tory cast; and, even at that early period he
opposed himself to any consideration of the Catholic claims, and to
schemes of parliamentary reform. As an aide-de-camp, and a member of
a Protestant family, his sentiments were, of course, coloured by the
opinions of the noblemen and statesmen with whom he associated."

The early military services of Arthur Wellesley, both in Europe and in
India, were brilliant. Some of his first exploits in action were marked
by promptitude and genius rivalling in lustre the feats of his proudest
days. In India, his conquests of the refractory chiefs, Dhoondiah and
the Peishwah, and his successes in the Mysorean war, under Baird, were
full of daring and of glory.*

* For an extended account of General Wellesley's Indian
campaigns see "Nolan's History of the British Empire in
India and the East." Virtue; City Road and Ivy Lane, London.

As a general officer, he showed every quality which commanded respect
from his seniors, reverence from his juniors, confidence alike in those
whom he commanded, and those who devolved responsibility upon him,
and the astonishment and admiration of his enemies. The treatment he
received in India was not just nor considerate, and to the latest period
of his life he felt that neither by his brother the Marquis Wellesley,
the East India Company, nor the government at home, was he requited as
his merits deserved, nor did he deem that their conduct to him while on
actual service was what it should have been. The self-mastery and loyalty
with which he endured slights and injustice while rendering great
services, have probably never been exhibited e