The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-22 00:00:00

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
(From the Weekly Dispatch.)

The death of the Duke of Wellington has proved to
all the greatness of h's life. Nothing could be more
quiet—let us not be misunderstood in using the word
—more common-place than his closing scene ; there
was no climax, no catastrophe, no heroic sacrifice in
battle, like the fall of Nelson; no exhaustion by stern
mental strife, as in the fates of Pitt and Canning, no
sudden stroke of unforeseen accident, as we misterm
it, es in the loss of Peel. The Duke died at an age
when death must, in ordinary cases, have been long
expected—of a disease that ofren strikes old age
fatally—epilepsy; and this was caused probably by a
paroxysm of the morbid appetite for food, which it is
especially necessary guard against at that period of
lite. His danger, if we may believe the accounts,
was apparent to himself, and much underrated by
the apothecary who was summoned, Mr. Hulke,
although that person had attended him on the occa-
sion of a previous similar attack. However, the Duke
has quitted life, as far as we may pronounce for
another, happily ' • in the fulness of years, and without
the painful and humiliating decline of faculties. He
has died a natural death, and, we hope, a very
easy one. The time of his ceasing to breathe could
not be exactly determined. And so passing away,
with us little to startle in the event as death
can bring, the event itself causes one deep,
strong, unanimous sensation. What may be the effect
in other lands we know not—we almost care not; the
great country which he served is enough to estimate
his memory and to treasure it. He has, as much as
one man can embody a common cause, saved Europe;
but we do not expect Europe to repay its debt, or
even to understand it. It was the single misfortune
of the Duke's life that he served those who were every
way less worthy than himself. In this we do not
speak of the nations he so mainly helped to redeem
from intolerable and disgraceful bondage, but of those
who led and represented them. In England he has
long been locked upon as a piece of living history.
The past had more of him in men's minds than the
present, but, had a present arisen that needed his help,
the old faith in him would have been shown, as of
old. Indeed, in the two latest crises of our policy,
both within the period of the shortest memory, he
was locked to as the arbiter of all differences. The
Russell Ministry could scarcely rule, and none were
ready to succeed them ; the Duke's moral authority
composed the difficulty, and on the weight of his
decision the effete continued in power. The nation
was in possible peril from the freaks of irregular and
unscrupulous authority in France ; all sane men
asked, what insurance against the danger will the
Duke think sufficient ? He had not outlived his
service or his fame; and he dies when neither could
have been much increased. Moreover, he passes from
us at a time when all enmity and all envy are disarmed
—when he is understood as he would desire to be.
This is great fortune. The earlier part of his Euro-
pean career was subject to all the spleen of party.
The somewhat shallow, and the not too honest persons
who then represented the people's cause, never divided
or classed the progress of the French revolution and
its consequences. In the origin of the great war,
which was only stayed, till 1814, by a hollow truce,
the French, maddened and brutalized as they were by
the education of serfs, fought for the inherent rights
of mankind against the paltriest and most presump-
tucus usurpers of them. They claimed national exist-
ence against the miserable conspirators of Pilnitz.
Disgraced as their cause might be, it was, in its main
essentials, holy. The disgusting egotism of many in-
dividuals polluted it ; the horrible selfishness of one
engulfed it. Men who are striving against the charla-
tan tyrannies of Napoleon the Little should begin by
rightly estimating him whom, for antithesis' sake,
they call Napoleon the Great. That Napoleon sub-
stituted bloodglory for the defence of patriots and free-
men ; he substituted aggression, lust of conquest,
brigandage, for republican virtue; he derided equality,
and threw baubles to dupes as badges of slavery; he,
the ancient enemy of France by blood and feeling,
the avenger of Paoli—he, the Corsican, the son of a
conquered land, whose schoolboy dreams were hatred
to his island's oppressors—crushed France and stood
upon its ruins, its possessor, its tyrant, governing
the estate and the human cattle upon it with
skill indeed, but with skill exerted only for his own
personal purposes. France was his, and that was the
sum of his regard for it. But half-minded men never
analyse causes; when party spirit works they wilfully
confuse them. When Napoleon reigned, it was
England fighting for existence against a tyranny as
frightful as that which France had discomfited.
France had taken the place of aggression. Our Li-
berals could not see this. To them, as to some French-
men of the present day, who, as hildren, are unable
to give up the bauble glories of the Empire, Napolean
was the vindicator of freedom against tyrants, the
child of the Republic. He hated and despised both.
When Wellington entered the field of European con-
test, it was in opposition to the idol of these twaddling
dramatic romancers, these would-be politicians, who
preferred a story book in weekly or daily parts, in
which their favourite might triumph, to the serious
justice and the hard practical facts they had no skill
to appreciate. They felt for Napoleon as they would
feel for Madame Laffarge or Ainsworth's Jack
Sheppard. We are tracing Wellington's career in
tracing these contrasts. He and Napoleon were
indeed impelled on different courees in widely
different spheres of action, but the moral
distinction was as great as the material. Wellington
was no hero for slipslop sentimentality. The Li-
berals of England thought that they were doing
service to mankind when they were mocking Ile
his plain, patient genius, and thwarting his efforts to
arrest a plague that dazzled them by flashing its in-
fluence in lightning meteors. But the English sym-
pathy, the heart of the people, as we remember well,
was with the English general. They did more than
illuminate for his victories—they rejoiced in the ap-
portionment of the rewards which they were well
aware they had to pay. Even after the retreat from
Moscow they could hardly believe Napoleon Bona-
parte to be anything less than personally invincible
but they honoured Wellington as the man that could
beat all his generals. The cynical Opposition carped
and hindered—the paltry Government was afraid of
supporting to its utmost, and with full avowal, the
nh a dto
win
who did its choice unwonted honour. Welling-
to success, that he might have the power
soldier
to compel from his employers the means of success
afterwards—and he did it. He conquered reluctance
at home as enemies abroad, and forced enthusiasm as
well as victory. He has been compared to Napoleon :
he should be contrasted with him. For ourselves, we
decidedly say that he was the greater man. He un-
dertook his task under all the obligations of morality
and honour, and he beat the man who would own
none of them. This ought never to be forgotten
in the estimation of noted men. It is the
first interest of mankind to give the prize to those
who deliberately choose to serve their fellows in com-
pliance with the laws of right, and not to those who
make mankind serve them in utter defiance of these
laws. If merely to produce a given quantity of
change, regardless of the means which bring it about,
or the ends for which it is accomplished, be the mea-
sure of greatness, the conscienceless must transcend
those who have conscience. Good is heavily weighted
while evil is free. We are not comparing abilities,
but deeds ; the men as they stand in history self-
sculptured. The use of all qualities is the glory of
the possessors. Wellington and Bonaparte acted
upon opposite principles; they never could have un-
derstood one another. Vellington's unselfish devo-
tion was to his country, personified to him, as a soldier,
in that country's Sovereign. If we could imagine
him at a conference in another world, it would be
carrying out the Queen's interests to the utmost of
his power. Bonaparte so completely mistook him,
that one of his calculations was that the 'Wellesley
family, after what they had achieved for England, must
be expecting to reign in it. He could not understand
the dignified humility of true glory, the fame that
is won by working for a great cause without a second
thought, that imperishable and ever honoured
fame that comes as an unsought accident to the per-
formance of duty. Again, as a soldier, we cannot
allow Wellington to be less than Napoleon's superior.
The successes of Austerlitz and Jena were in a great
degree Napoleon's own ; but even there he had no
worthy competitors. At Marengo he was beaten.
Desaix released him from defeat. At Wagram he
would have perished with all his army, had the Arch-
duke Charles trusted in his own victory. What
Wellington achieved he owed to himself, even to the
formation of his armies out of the most unpromising
materials. Lamartine has thoroughly estimated him
when, in his narrative of the battle of Waterloo, he
treats him as the most perfect and illustrious imper-
sonation of the English character. Wellington des-
paired
follower, as he made up his mind to be at Waterloo,
but he would not be beaten. When but one of his
staff was left beside him, and he was asked what was
to be done in case of anything happening to himself,
he had but one order to give, "to die to the last
man." Napoleon had won many a battle by out-
daring his enemies; there was no such thing as out.-
daring Wellington. As he bad been obliged to
cover with his fame the sins of his patrons at the
opening of his career, so he suffered in the dis-
grace of others when he hnd helped to win Europe
for them. The tyrants of the Holy Alliance made
him appear an accomplice in their iniquity, though ho
was in nowise responsible for the abuse of the power
which he had so mainly contributed to recover for
them. This is admitted and comprehended now.
When we turn to him as a statesman, we have the
same character, but employed on a subject respecting
which his mind was not specially instructed. There
were the same sense of right, the same simple single-
mindedness, the sine disdain of hollow convention,
the same ditregard of personal consequences; but there
were, also, the pride of birth and the habit of aristo-
cratic predilection, and the absence of philosophical
traitii9g, which might countervail them. What he

------
,
TO THE EDITOR Or THE SUN.
L SlR,—The Essex magistrates, when they decided
the charges against Mr. Simpson
and Monsieur and
Madame Poitevin, declared their perfect consciousness
that the eyes of Europe were upon them. I certainly
was not previously aware that Europe occupied her
visual organs in gazing on such intellectual objects as
the Solons of the Ilford bench; but, if it be so, and if
her ea
rs as well as her eyes were employed on the oc-
casion in question, I cannot but think that she must,
like myself, have been very much at a loss, on hearing
awdi
mthir
erke
ntghoaewri drl e
dgt oga
el
IMao
nfat drt
yah me
towards el
the decision at which these learned gentlemen arrived
aPw o i
which
swtehxbe,eytohprerrofme
administer.
The magistrates were sitting in the character of a
theirsoa
es
dt
ttpro-
foundeojury, and in that character were called upon to give
the accused the benefit of any reasonable doubt, and
this obligation, which applies to every case whether
decided by a jury or by magistrates acting in their
judicial capacity, surely was not the less imperative
because upon this occasion the offence charged was
one created by statute, and the person accused was a
foreigner and a lady ; but, if it turns out so far from
there being a doubt, the law was clearly in favour of
Madame Poitevin, and neither the care which doubt
engenders, or the sympathy which the weaker sex
commands, were necessary to lead to her acquittal.
What will Europe say, when, having withdrawn her
gaze from these her favourite sons, and the sound of
the oracular words which proceed from their lips
having died away, she exercises her judgment on their
proceedings?
It will be recollected that the alleged offence was
committed by Madame Poitevin in the presence of and
in company with her husband he being not only
actually present, but taking a
part in the transaction ;
and therefore, unless there was something in this case
to take it out of the general rule as to the presumed
coercion of the wife in offences committed by her, in
the presence of and jointly with her husband, she was
undoubtedly entitled to en acquittal. It is true that
this rule of law simply raises a legal presumption of
coercion, which is capable of being rebutted by evi,
dence ; but in this case no such evidence was given,
and therefore the presumption of law remained in full
force in favour of the female defendant ; and although
there is some question as to the extent to which this
rule applies to certain offences, mala in se, there is no
authority for the position that it does not extend to a
statutsable offence of this description, but on the con-
trary, the reported decisions, Rex V. price, 8 c. and
p. 19, Anon. Match. Dig. Cr. Law, 262, clearly
show that it does. I nr.
""' quite aware that these are
decisions which, it has been contended, take all cases
below felony out of the operation of this rule; but I
believe that on examination of all those cases it will
be found that their effect has been misconceived by
those who have drawn a distinction which inthe
more recent cases is, after consideration, repudiated,
and, therefore, I think I am justified in contending
that the decision of the Ilford Bench exhibits on the
part of those who pronounced it a want oflegald
knowledge, as well as the absence of that courtesyan
consideration which a lady and a foreigner might
have expected at the hands of English magistrates
and English gentlemen.
The difference between the proceedings at Ilford
case
which the course pursued by Mr. Arnold in the
which was heard before him, who so determinedly
refused to permit his feelings or his private opinions
to interfere with the construction which, as a lawyer,s
he felt himself called to put upon the statute which it
was his duty to interpret is so self-evident as to in-
duce even those who are the most anxious that our
country gentlemen should possess that influence
with which their position as justices of the peace in-
vests them, seriously to doubt r even that con-
sideration ought to weigh against the .
close adminis-
unpaid services
tration of justice ; and whesher if
ought not to be alto ether
ether dispensed with on the
judgment-seat, somethin like
a decent knowledge of
the law ought at all events to be possessed by its ad-
ministrators; but be this as it may,l should strongly
advise the Solons of the Ilford Bench,ae of their own
while pre-
sent system continues, for the k s
credit, to request that Europe willbe kind enough to
shut her eyes during their present deliberatione.
I am, Sir, &c.,Temple, Sept. 18, 1852.
......--
T 0-

T. 13.

citement exists at Oldham
the election cannot take
dinary great deal of ex
-HE .'LORAN ELECTION.--A
in reference to the ensuing
election in the room of Mr. Duncuft, deceased, and although
place until November, the most
active exertions are being made by the two candidates, Mr.
Heald and Mr. W. J. Fox. The town presents an extraor-
dinary
and banners with devices indicative of the political sea-
degree of bustle; almost every public-house exhibits
tin-tents of the respective candidates. There has been a re-
port that Robert Owen, the Socialist, would offer himself,
but there does not seem to be any foundation for the rumour.
Oldham has been generally remarkable for the fervour, not
to say violence, it exhibits at elections, but party spirit has
never been so strongly manifested as upon this occasion.
There are meetings almost every night, at some of which
such a spirit of turbulence has been exhibited that the friends
of Mr. Fox thought it advisable to appeal to the magis-
trates to take some s'eps to protect the inhabitants. The
consequence is that placards are now posted on the walls
deprecating the use of flags and banners, and stating the
determination of the magistrates to prevent riotous
assemblages. Already many windows have been broken,
and other injury done to property. On Saturday, in
spite of a drenching rain, the supporters of Mr. Heald had an
open air meeting near the town. All passed off quietly, but
in the evening the town was in an agitated state, and
the merits, or rather the alleged demerits of both candi-
dates were discui.sed by the respective parties with conside-
derable warmth. The placards and other articles put for-
ward attract public attention in a very high degree, and
when the time for the election draws nearer the contest will.
no doubt, assume a still more formidable character. The
general opinion at Oldham seems to be that Mr. Fox will be
returned again.
THE CoMAIANDERSHIE-IN -CHIEF OF THE ARMY,--It
is, we understand, confidently reported that the post of Com-
mander-in-Chief of the Army will be offered to Lord iIar-
(LDP.-- aironicle,