BOOKS.

MORE WELLINGTON DESPATCHES.* WHEN Colonel Garwood published the first edition of the Duke's despatches the old soldier jocularly exclaimed—" Really, I believe I am the most voluminous author of the present day." He would have said so with good reason had he seen the four huge volumes which his son has collected and added to Gurwood's selection, under the modest title of Supplementary Despatches. But, it is a fact very little known and less appreciated, that every great general must be a very voluminous author. So large a part of his work does not consist in fighting or even in marching, but in making ready to fight and march. Napoleon shone not less in his attention to detail, to small things, to things apparently remote, than in grand strategical conceptions, and marvellous execution of the plans he had conceived. But that details may not suffer, the pen must be as swift as the sword, for however active a gene- ral may be, and the two great captains of our century, both knew what it was to live in the saddle, still much will remain beyond the possible reach of personal inspection and personal communi- cation. In the present volumes the topics which test the mental activity of Sir Arthur Wellesley are as varied as those in their two predecessors ; and the mode of treating them furnishes as many proofs of that perfection of common sense, love of justice, and foresight, which form the basis of the character of Welling- ton. His despatches show that he was one of the greatest men of business ever produced by England, which piques herself upon her business men. It is this characteristic which has been forced upon the attention of all who have carefully read his despatches and memoranda.

Although the whole of the despatches now published are not new, yet the greater portion of these bulky volumes is quite fresh. The student of history will find most profit in the memoranda. Among these documents will be found a diary of conferences with the Vakeels of Scindiah and the Rajah of Berar, which followed the breaking up of the Mahratta confederacy. The letters of Arthur Wellesley to his brother the Marquis, will also be found remarkable for their frankness and piercing judgments on men, things, and lines of conduct open under given circumstances. When Sir Arthur left India he desired to get home " more than he could express." He was tired of that field of service, and evidently longed for employment in Europe. This is clear from a letter to Sir John Cradook, dated Seringapatam, 15th January, which throws a light upon his frame of mind, desires, and prospects- " I am very much obliged to you for your sentiments upon my situation and views in this country, but I acknowledge that I don't agree with you. It may be true that I have overrated my chances of employment in Europe, and have not given sufficient weight to the advantages of the situation which you say is to be offered to my acceptance. In respect to the latter, however, I believe that my opinion is not incorrect; and I have determined not to accept it if it should be offered. * * * * I shall now observe upon our difference of opinion upon this subject, that you think about my staying in India like a man who has just come out, and I like one who has been here for seven years involved in perpetual troubles. I acknowledge that I am anxious to a degree which I cannot express to see my friends again ; and even if I were certain that I should not be employed in England at all, there is no situation in India which would induce me to eta, here. I am not rich in comparison with other people, but very much so in comparison with my former situation, and quite sufficiently so for my own wants. I got a great deal of prize-money in the last war ; which, with what I got before, and a sum of money which the Court of Directors gave me for a ser- vice rendered to them in this country, and the accumulation of the interest upon those sums, have rendered me independent of all office or employ- ment." '

The records of his voyage home contain further evidence of the activity of his mind, of his retentive memory, and powerful grasp of any subject he took in hand.

We have spoken of the Duke's sense of justice. Appeals of all kinds were continually and necessarily made to him. He had proceedings of Court's-martial to confirm, quarrels among officers to repress, the encroaching spirit of the military over the civil authorities to keep within bounds. He did these things, some- times sternly, at others not without a spice of humour. To wit : he is writing to Colonel Montresor- " I shall forward to head-quarters the papers regarding Captain — with my remarks upon them. I wish that you would give a hint to Major that there is no occasion for so much correspondence among officers in the same cantonment, and that I desire that he will communicate verbally with those under his command instead of in writing, excepting on occasions in which writing is absolutely necessary. These disputes in that corps would not have occurred if the art of writing had never been invented, and Cap- tain — and the doctor had not imagined that they possessed it. "You ought to put Captain — in arrest. You ordered him upon the duty of the general court-martial, and it is proper that you should put him in arrest. If you don't think so, you may put him in arrest by my orders. At all events, the general court-martial have no power over him.

"I shall leave Captain —'a head to be dressed by the Adjutant-Gene- ral for his conduct in respect to the doctor, giving him a few hints of my sentiments upon the subject."

Most of our readers will remember the course adopted by Wel- lington on entering France, the severe punishments he inflicted to stop marauding, the protection he offered to the inhabitants and its instant and permanently beneficial effects. He had eleven years earlier adopted the same rule of conduct in India. Here is General Order issued in 1803—

" As the European soldiers have taken to plundering the neighbouring illages, and more irregularities have been proved against one man of the • Supplementary Despatches and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, LG. India 1797-1605. Edited by his son, the Doke of Wellington. Volumes III. and IV.

Artillery, one of the 74th Regiment, and one of the 78th Regiment, Major- General 'Wellesley directs that the rolls may be called in those corps every hour. Four drummers of the 78th Regiment to attend immediately with their cats at the Provost Sergeant's tent to inflict 200 lashes on — of the 4th company 78th Regiment, with whom one of the plundered cattle has been found. Major-General Wellesley gives notice that he will punish with death any man found guilty, hereafter, of plundering. Annum WELLESLEY."

During his absence he received complaints of the conduct of the officers of the garrison of Seringapatam, relating to the judicial establishment. He thus comments upon them in a letter to Lieu- tenant-Colonel de ?baron.

"As a British officer I have always considered it to be my duty, nay more, an honourable distinction to the character of a British officer, to sup- port the laws and the authority of the magistrates who administer them. In this country in particular, in which his Majesty's European subjects are not liable to the jurisdiction of the courts of justice established by the laws of our country for the government of the Natives of India, it is more par- ticularly incumbent on those British officers, who have a due sense of the honour of their profession and situation, to support the authority of the ma- gistrates appointed by Government to preside in those courts. * * * • I desire that you will publish this letter in the garrison orders, and that you will inform the officers of the garrison that they have no business whatever with the decrees or the proceedings of the court of justice of Seringapatam, excepting in cases in which they may themselves think proper to apply to it. In every instance in which an officer may have anything to say to the magistrate in his official capacity, 'excepting in a case where such offices may be himself a party, the officer is to apply to you, and the commanding officer of the garrison is to be the only channel of communication with the magistrate."

And he thinks it best that it should be publicly known at once that he is determined to use his power to try and punish " any person" guilty of disobeying his orders and violating the law. In another ease a Captain had been found guilty of very serious offences, and had been sentenced to a trivial punishment. Wel- lesley directed the court-martial to revise its proceedings. " The court-martial have found Captain — guilty, first of having re- ceived a present from a Birder in payment for services rendered, and other presents from other sirdars. In addition to the infam which must attach to the character of any officer for accepting payment foy r services of this na- ture, which can be considered in no other light than as a bribe, I have to observe that the law of our country forbids the acceptance of any present from a native of this country, and declares that the acceptor shall forfeit double the amount of its value. It likewise declares the acceptance of a present to be extortion and a misdemeanour at law. The court-martial find the prisoner guilty, in fact, of defrauding the Government of the Soubah of the Deccan in the fourth charge, and of defrauding the brinjarries in the second additional charge, and of endeavouring to con- ceal these frauds by a false account transmitted to me in the third additional charge ; and yet for these crimes, which must be repugnant to every hon- ourable mind, which include bribery and extortion and fraud and the fabri- cation of false accounts, the general court-martial have been satisfied with a sentence that Captain — should be reprimanded, and that he should be suspended from the service for six months. " It must be recollected, that at the end of those six months he will re- turn to his station as an officer of the army • and supposing that it were not necessary on public grounds that crimes such as those of which he has been guilty should be punished in the most exemplary manner, surely there is no officer belonging to the Coast army who will not feel disgraced that such a man should remain in the service and that his character should form a part of the general character of the Army."

We have brought out these facts because they stand in such honourable contrast to the proceedings of General Glyulai in Pied- mont. No soldier was ever more successful than Wellington. No soldier ever carried on war more humanely, whether in the country of an ally or an enemy. He found a profit in being just, but it is easy to see that injustice was intolerable to his na- ture, and that he was not just merely because justice is the best policy.

The general reader will peruse with interest a despatch of Sir Arthur, dated Dublin Castle, 20th. April, 1808, to Mr. Dundas, at p. 592 of vol. IV. It has been published by Garwood in his second edition, but its repetition here has a special interest. We refer to Sir Arthur's advice to the Government on the report of a projected invasion of India by the combined forces of France and Russia. We know how that alliance expired in the flames of Moscow and among the snows of Poland. The political horizon shows no sign of its renewal now upon the scale and with the de- signs contemplated in 1800 and 1808. But neither could our forefathers in 1808 foresee Moscow and Waterloo. Although the description of the plan of Sir Arthur Wellesley for resisting such an invasion is too long for quotation, the reader may be glad to possess, as a curiosity, the account which the noble editor of the Supplementary Despaches gives of the scheme of invasion as sketched in 1800.

" It is affirmed, that in 1800 the French Government suggested to the Emperor Paul a conjoint French and Russian expedition against British India. France and Russia were each to supply 36,000 men ; and the Em- peror of Germany was to give a passage to the French troops, and to facili- tate their descent by the Danube to the Eraine. " The Russian army to be assembled at Astracan, on the North-west of the Caspian Sea, was to consist of 25,000 regulars and 10,000 Cossacks; from Astracan it was to embark for Astrabad, on the South-east coast of the Cas- pian, there to wait the arrival of the French. Astrabad to be the head- quarters, and magazines &c., to be established there. "Route of the French? Army.—Thirty-tive thousand men to be detached from the army of the Rhine, and to descend the Danube to the Euxine ; there to be embarked on Russian transports, and passing the Euxine and Sea of Azof, to disembark under Tajanrog. Then to coast along the Don, ascend the right bank of the river to the Cossack town Piati-Ishianka; there pass the Don, and march to the environs of Tsaritsin on the right bank of the Volga; from thence to re6mbark and descend that river to Astracan there to embark on mercantile vessels, to be found in abundance, for Astra-

bad. " The French and Russian forces being united at Judrabad, to pass the

the -iin Indus. Terah, and Candahar, and to march on to the right bank a " Time.—Descent of the Danube to its mouth, 20 days; to Tajanrog, 18 ; rutti-Ishianka, 20; to Tsaritsin, 4; to Astracan, 5; to Astrahad, 10; to borders of the Indus, 45. Total, 120 days. " The death of the Emperor Paul in 1801 prevented, it is supposed, the attempted invasion, but the project was revived in 1807, and it probably formed one of the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit, which the Emperor of Russia refused to communicate to the British Government."