a warmer circulation and a little better humour than

at present."

A month later he writes,

"I am just returned from a five-and-twenty days' inspectional tour, spending a little of the nation's money in endeavouring to save a great deal. That is a great deal to say after last year's savings; but as both the House and the Treasury ordered us to make a survey with this view without delay, I have been obedient in taking to my share the eastern coast, from the Thames to Cromer, and am proceeding to the southern from Dover to Portsmouth. I have done something, though not a very great deal, at least have the conviction that more cannot be done; and having performed the whole tour on horseback, have also done much for myself, for my health is astonishingly improved. My mental health has also been much gratified by the sight of the improving condition of all ranks of people, and an agricultural district in this most glorious of agricultural weather which I had never happened before to have visited, for never had I before been in Norfolk or Suffolk. I must say they have richly repaid me, for never did I see more quiet or contented, yet obvious usefulness than every where seemed to belong to all I did see. There is nothing grand or striking in the face of the country, nothing like your Wales, but every where a succession of pleasant villages and farms, exhibiting comfortable, if not happy, industry in a year blest by Providence with unusual plenty.

"At Norwich there was not a single loom unemployed. Throughout where I have been, what struck me most was the great civility and subordination of the people; and though party ran high in Norfolk, it was from mere county politics."

The importance of giving employment at home in the public service to the active mind of the Duke of Wellington appears to have occurred to Lord Mulgrave, and the office he himself held seemed to him that to which the attention of the Duke might be most naturally transferred. It was that with which during the operations of the war he had been in constant communication, and on which the success of his operations had often materially depended. Without a suggestion, therefore, from any quarter, did Lord Mulgrave offer to the Earl of Liverpool that the appointment to the office which he himself held should be tendered to the Duke; an arrangement to be completed whenever the exigencies of the public service should admit of his coming home. This arrangement was ultimately carried out with this modification, that by the express desire of the Prince Regent, Lord Mulgrave still continued to hold a seat in the Cabinet. The opinion formed at the time of Lord Mulgrave's conduct, will be best seen by the following extracts from letters addressed to him when his determination was first known.

While the Duke of Wellington was still at Aix la Chapelle, on the 1st of November, 1818, Lord Mulgrave received his assent to the proposed arrangement, with the assurance that he was "thoroughly

sensible of the kindness towards him" which had dictated Lord Mulgrave's conduct, and that he was "too well aware of the benefits which the Ordnance Department has derived from his superintendence, and had himself received too much benefit from it to think of altering any thing of which the course of time may not render an alteration necessary.

The Duke's brother, the Right Hon. W. W. Pole, spoke still more warmly as an old friend, adding — "Your conduct has been upon the present occasion what I have always found it, most romantically honourable, and full of consideration for others and contempt for your own interests. I enter into all the delicacy of your feelings towards the Duke of Wellington, which must strike every man for their magnanimity, and much as I must naturally rejoice at the Duke's coming into the Cabinet of which I am a member, yet I own I cannot but regret your retiring from office. It is some consolation that

of the Cabinet."

you remain

A letter from Lord Bathurst to Lord Mulgrave, in which, after saying, "We are two of the oldest of Mr. Pitt's friends now belonging to the Cabinet, and when I recollect the time which we passed with him at Bath, when we were all out of office," he had added, "I cannot bring myself to allow your resignation to pass by, without lamenting on the one hand that your health should have rendered this measure advisable, and without, on the other, expressing my very sincere delight in finding that you have consented not to withdraw from us altogether, but that I may still consider you a colleague, and united in

the same political engagements," called forth from Lord Mulgrave the following explanation of his feelings:

"Few circumstances in my life have given me more satisfaction than the uniform friendship which I have experienced from you, manifested in very substantial proofs when the Government was forming in 1807, and now manifested in the very kind tenor of your letter just received. It is no small addition to that satisfaction that it connects itself with the remembrance of the admiration and affection with which we both estimated all the qualities of the heart and understanding which endeared Mr. Pitt to those who had the happiness of enjoying his society and regard. You will, I am sure, be glad to know that my resignation of the Ordnance has not arisen from any consideration of health, but originated in my persuasion that it would be of important advantage to the Government that the Duke of Wellington should hold an efficient office in the Cabinet, and from a conviction that such an arrangement would meet with the approbation of the public. With these impressions on my mind I did not hesitate in resigning my department, at the same time accepting with satisfaction a seat in the Cabinet, that ill health, or still less any

difference of opinion with my colleagues, might not be considered as the ground of my resignation.

"Believe me, with great regard,

"Ever, my dear Bathurst,
"Yours most sincerely,

"MULGRAVE."

R. Ward to Lord Mulgrave.

"My dear Lord,

"Pall Mall, Nov. 26. 1818.

"The great wish I have had to prevent the intrusion of business upon you not of the first consequence, has kept me silent since you left London. Not the less have I been mindful, however, of every thing concerning you here or at Mulgrave. At the latter I hear with pleasure that you have enjoyed yourself with amended health. Here I have often heard your name and the late transaction mentioned in various

quarters, and always with honour. Though I abstained from glancing at the subject myself, yet of course it was known to many, those of the Cabinet, and at the door of the Cabinet, at Carlton House, and at the Horse Guards, and I at least had the satisfaction of witnessing the universal and uniform impression which your disinterestedness had made. Pole's prophecy that you would not be thanked, but be soon forgotten, has, in truth, failed; for you are both praised and remembered. I understand that the Duke of York has expressed himself most flatteringly about it; and Sir B. Bloomfield, to whom I went on