The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-09-28 00:00:00

to his chest
" Dr

, as on a former occasion this had giv
M'Arthm

Fergusson were telegraphed for.
" Dr. M'Arthur advised a mustard emetic to be given,
having prescribed one with advantage for the Duke several
years ago under similar circumstances. This and other

s were now of no avail

His Grace became

restless, tried to turn on his left side ;occasionally there
were slight twitchings of the left arm. When raised in bed,
his breathing was much more free, and this induced us
to place him in an easy chair, when his respiration became
much less embarrassed ; his pulse sank, and his Grace
was now placed more horizontally ; the pulse rallied for a
little time, and then gredually declined ; the breathing
became more feeble; and, at twenty-five minutes past
three o'clock p.m., his Grace breathed his last. So easy
and gentle was the transition, that for the moment it was
doubted. A mirror was held before his Grace's mouth ;
its brightness was undimmed, and he was no more.
" JOHN WHITAKER HULKE."

TRE DUKE'S WILL.—The Duke of Wellington has left
a will, though the contents of it as yet remain undisclosed.
It is dated as tar back as 1818, and was found late on
Saturday nightiweek at Coutts's Bank. The existence of
this document was, we believe, unknown even to those
most nearly connected with the Duke, who, though of late
years he had ordered several wills to be prepared, yet
never could make up his mind to execute them. The
Duke appears to have always avoided the subject of his
own death, and the arrangements connected with it.
Those who knew him best hardly ever remember to have
heard him talk of such matters, and, in illustration of
this feature in his character, a curious fact may be men-
tioned. Every one knows that he received, in the ccurse
of his long and distinguished life, many presents of im-
mense value, and that Apsley House is filled with a great
variety of objects, the interest attached to which can
hardly be overrated. The collection, as personal property,
was, of course, exposed to the risk of dispersion after the
Duke's death, and with a view to its preservation, an act
of parliament was obtained, enabling his Grace, within a
space of two years, to make heirlooms of such objects as
he wished to see inalienably attached to his title and
estates. Singularly enough, it was not till the last day of
the time thus granted that he signed the documents re-
quisite to make the act available.

RFAIARKABLE COINCIDENCE.—It is a singular circum-
stance that an old Waterloo man, of the none of Henry
Judd, about 80 years of age, who resided here, died on
Tuesday last, the same day and nearly at the same
moment that his Grace the Duke of Wellington expired.
—Sherborne Journal.

A FACT..-It is astonishing the extent of ignorance
frequently met with even on matters of current history.
A good dame, the wife of a well-to-do tradesman ate cer-
tain favourite watering-place, being informed of the death
of the Duke of Wellington, innocently asked the ques-
tion, " Is that, sir, the man who wanted to go to war with
England!'

THE DUKE'S BODILY SYSTEM remained sound to the
last. His fine nervous energies were wonderfully pre-
served. For example, he alAays shaved himself; and the
only change in this which was observable as years accu-
mulated was that a rather longer time was occupied in the
process. He also wrote a good firm hand, and, until
within a very years before his death, would not unfre-
quently indite three or four:letters before breakfast. There
is another fact of the same character. In his eighty-fourth
year, and half a century after many of his greatest vic-
tories, the Duke could raise to his lips a glass of water,
filled to the brim steadily, and without spilling a drop !

- -
THE DUKE'S CHARGER.—The late Duke's charger,
" Copenhagen," took its name from the place of its birth
in 1808. The dam was taken over by the late Field Mar-
shal Grosvenor with the expedition to that place in 1807,
and there, it is said, produced a chesnut foal, which after-
wards became the property of the Duke, then Sir Arthur
Wellesley. It was consequently seven years old, and in
its full vigour at the great battle of the 18th of June, 1815.
The famous old English racing blood was in its veins ;
the sire was the celebrated " Meteor," the property of
the Grosvenor family, which was foaled in 1783—its
grandsire was the celebrated " Eclipse," and its great
erandsire a brnth.” ,f tha tt Ti'Tying ClAildoro,"
which was born about 1717, and son of the celebrated
" Darley Arabian."—John Bull.

THE DUKE'S OPINION OF THE BATTLE OF WATER-
Loo.—The following anecdote may not be generally
known. Some of the Duke's guests were discussing the
circumstances of the battle in his presence. It was not
his habit to take an active part in any conversation refer-
ring to his own campaigns. But on this occasion, the
arrival of Blucher, the absence of Grouchy, and other
similar topics, together with the antecedent probabilities
as to the issue of the great conflict, being talked of, the
Duke suddenly said, " If I had had the army which was
broken up at Bordeaux, the battle would not have lasted
for four hours." As the Duke was not given to boast, and
his judgment may be relied on, this forms an important
comment upon the engagement, about which so many
theories and speculations have been offered.

WAS THE DUKE EVER WOUNDED ?—The following
letter, which appears in Saunders' News Letter, is con.
elusive on the point :—" Sir,—Having read in your paper
of to-day the paragraph, Was the Duke of Wellington
ever wounded ?' it is replied that he was. I had the ho.
nour of dressing that wound. His grace received it on
the field at Orthes. It was caused by a spent ball on the
hip, breaking the skin and causing severe contusion. I
had also the honour at the same time of dressing General
Alava, who received a similar wound on the opposite hip.
These circumstances are known to Lord George Lennox,
who was then his aide-de-camp ; also to Lord Fitzroy
Somerset and Sir Edward Kerrison, who then commanded
the 7th Hussars, in which regiment I then served.—l am,
sir, yours, &c., James Moffit, staff surgeon, first class,
half-pay. 1, Otranto-place, Sandycove, Dalkey, Sept.
23, 1852."

WALMER CASTLE, where the Duke of Wellington died,
is just the sort of residence that would have been pointed
out by an imaginative mind as appropriate to such an
event. Placed behind the high shingly beach which the
incessant action of the waves has formed on this part of
coast, and surrounded on the landward side by lofty trees,
it does not arrest notice by any pretentious prominence,
and the modern windows opened in the thick old walls look
as if its warlike uses had been laid aside for the milder,
and more peaceful influences of the times in which we
live. There are, however, some heavy guns upon the
upper walls pointed towards the Downs, and below a
battery of smaller pieces that seem to include foreign
invasion among the contingencies to which we are still
exposed. It was a place of strength built for rough work
in stormy times. It has become a quiet sea-side residence
within earshot of the surf as it breaks upon the beach,
and within sight of those essentially Enlish objects, the
chalk cliffs of Dover, the Goodwin Sands, and the ship-
ping in the Downs. :This was no unsuitable place for
the Duke of Wellington to die in—that man in whose
eventful history the largest experiences of military and
civil life are so marvellously united.

LETTER FROM THE PRINCE REGENT (AFTERWARDS
GEORGE IV.)—The battle of Vittoria was fought on the
21st June, 1813, and among the trophies taken was the
baton of Marshal Jourdan, who commanded the French
army under Joseph Buanaparte. The baton was sent to
the Prince Regent, who in return conferred the rank of
Field Marshal upon Wellington (then Marquis of Wel-
lington), accompanying the appointment with a letter, of
which the following is a copy :—" Carlton House, July
3rd, 1813.—My dear Lord,—Your glorious conduct is
above all human praise, and far above my reward ; 1 know
no language the world affords worthy to express it. I feel
I have nothing left to say, but devoutly to offer up my
prayers of gratitude to Providence, that it has, in its
omnipotent bounty, blessed my country and myself with
such a general. You have sent me, among the trophies
of your unrivalled fame, the staff of a French marshal,
and I send you in return that of England. The British
army will hail it with enthusiasm ; while the whole uni-
verse will acknowledge those valorous efforts, which have
so imperiously called for it. That uninterrupted health,
and still increasing laurels, may continue to crown you
through a long and glorious career of life, are the never-
ceasing and most ardent wishes of, my dear lord, your
very sincere and faithful friend, " G.P.R.
" The Marquis of Wellington."

A writer in the Dublin Evening Mail, " who has en-
joyed the rare privilege of being admitted into the domestic
circle of the late Duke," mentions a few brief reminis-
cences of the illustrious dead, which display points of
character not generally known, at least beyond the pale
of private society. And first, of his kindly feeling towards
his afflicted countrymen :

" The sufferings of the Irish poor during the famine
period engaged his deepest sympathies, and he expressed
himself with the utmost warmth and feeling on the subject
of the savings'-bank failures, considering those deposits
of hardly-acquired earnings as a sacred trust, to be repaid,
without reference to legal technicalities, on the implied
faith of an imperial obligation. He seldom took the pains
of contradicting any calumny with regard to himself, or to
refute any aspersions on his fair fame, however destitute
of truth."

Secondly, with regard to the oft-repeated falsehood that
he denied the place of his nativity, and repudiated the
land of his birth, what will the libellers ( - -
to this ?

Eiis memory s

" No statement can be more utterly unfounded or un-
tenable. On the contrary, he was proud of Ireland ;
bestowed the deserved praise on those noble qualities with
which her sons are distinguished, but was grieved and
wounded to see that warm-hearted people misled and mis-
directed by senseless tirades against everything English,
fostering national animosities, and engendering sectarian
strife. He certainly was impressed with the idea that he
was disliked by his own countrymen, but could not account
for the unmerited prejudice that prevailed. It is to be
hoped that this misconception will now cease, and that

we shall render a just tribute to the statesman, soldier,
and citizen, who earned an imperishable and unsullied
reputation, and left a brilliant example, which cannot fail
in exercising a salutary influence both on the present age
and on generations yet to come."
STRANGE COINCIDENCE.—The column commenced at
Wynyard, in honour of the Duke of Wellington, on the
occasion of his Grace's visit to Wynyard in 1827, was
only finished on Saturday last, and the scaffolding was

_ - -
taken down the very day on which the illustrious Captain
died.—Sunderland 7'imes.

A TYPE OF CONSCIOUS DECAY IN THE LATE DUKE
OF WELLINGTON.—Upon the late occasion of the proro-
gation of parliament by the Queen in person, his late

the Duke felt

observe,

prove irk

" I DO feel
4. T Rra