and in subservience to the interests and
prejudices of his "order." His country generally has, therefore, not
given him credit for the highest order of statesmanship, but reveres
his memory as that of a man who served the country and the crown with
fidelity, and who studied the national honour in all things. Probably
the following estimate of his political capacity, position, and
services, is as accurate as any ever given to the public:--"By a destiny
unexampled in history, the hero of these countless conquests survived to
give more than one generation of his countrymen the benefit of his civil
services. Such an ordeal has never before been endured by any public
character. Military experience does not furnish the fittest schools of
statesmanship, especially when the country to be governed is that of
a free, intelligent, and progressive people. But, if the political
principles of the great man who has now departed were not always
reconcilable with the opinions and demands of modern advancement,
they were at least consistent in themselves, were never extravagantly
pressed, never tyrannically promoted, and never obstinately maintained
to the hindrance of the government or the damage of the state. In
estimating Wellington's politics it must never be forgotten that he
was a politician of 1807, and that he descended to us the last
representative of a school that had passed. If he was less
liberally-minded than the statesmen of his later days, we may fairly
inquire how many of his own generation would have been as liberal as
he?"

In 1822, the duke appeared at the allied conference at Vienna, the
object of which was to put down the rising demand on the continent
for constitutional government. Spain was intensely agitated, and its
imbecile monarch was afraid to resist any longer the call for free
institutions, so loudly and unanimously made by his subjects. The
continental sovereigns viewed the slightest approach to political
freedom with alarm. The restored Bourbon government of France took the
lead in the policy of repression, and demanded the countenance of the
continental powers, and of England, for an invasion of Spain, to support
the king in trampling out the last spark of liberty among his subjects.
Mr. Canning was minister for foreign affairs in England. He instructed
the Duke of Wellington to resist the proposal of France, and to insist
upon non-intercession. Either his grace performed his part inadequately,
as was g