The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-20
WELLINGTON AND WATERLOO.
The Great Dukes Opinions of the Warrior
Whom lie Defeated-Talks with Croker.

Philadelphia Times.
Among the many interesting features Of the
"Correspondence and Diaries of John Wilson
Croker" just published in New York, are
Croker's notes of conversations with the Duke
of Wellington, taken down as they occurred.
The following extracts relate mainly to Ma
poleon and Waterloo. Speaking of Bonaparte,
the Duke said: II never was a believer in him,
and 1 always thought that in the long run we
should ~overturn him. He never seemed him
self at his ease, and even in the boldest things
no did there was always q mixture Of appre-
hension and meanness. ] used to call him iona
than Wild the Great, and at each new coup he
made I used to cry out, We'll done, Jonathan
to the great scandal of some of my hearers.
But the truth was, he had no more care about
what was right or wrong, just or unjust, honor
able or dishonorable, than Jonathan, though his
great abilities and the great stakes he played for
threw the knavery into the shade"
"Posterity will hardly believe the success and
extent of that system of darkness which Bona
parte spread over France, but it is so complete
that even l, who had been so many years in con-
tact with his armies, and was now for months
on his frontier, was glad to CLEAN from any pre-
carious ard humble sources some knowledge of
the real state ofthe interior"
'The best of all the publications (about Bona
parte) is that of Baron Fain. All the dictations
to Montholon, Gourgaud and Las Casas are of
little real authority. They are what Bonaparte
on after consideration thought it expedient to
represent things to have been, and not what
they were. An accurate reader will find them
to be what made-up stories always must be, full
of contradictions, but we who know the affairs
of our time know that they are full of false
hoods"
"Bouaparte's mind was, in his details, low and
ungentleman-like. L suppose the narrowness Of
his early prospects and habits stuck to him;
what we understand by gentleman-llke feelings
he knew nothing at all about; III give you a
curious instance.
II have a beautiful little watch, made by
Breguet, at Paris, with a map Of Spain most ad-
mirably enameled on the case. Sir Edward Pa
get bought it at Paris and gave it to me. What
do you think the history of this watch waS-at
least the history that Breguet told Paget and
Paget told met Bonaparte had ordered it as a
present to his brother, the King of Spain, but
when he heard of the battle of Nittoria-he was
then at Dresden in the midst of all the prepare
lions and negotiations of the armistice, and one
would think sufficiently busy with other matters
-when he heard of the battle of Vittoria say,
he remembered the watch he had ordered for
one whom he saw would never be King Of Spain
and with whom he was angry for the loss of the
battle, and lie wrote from Dresden to counter
mand the watch, and if it should be ready, to
forbid its being sent. The best apology one can
make for this strange littleness is that he was
offended with Joseph; but even in that case a
gentleman would not have taken the mo
ment when the poor devil had lost his chateaux
en- Espagne to take away his watch also.
All those codicils to his will. in which he be-
queathed millions to the right and left and
among others left a legacy to the fellow who
was accused of attempting to assasslnate me, is
another proof of littleness of mind; the prop
erty he really had he had already made his dis
position of. For the payment of all those other
high-sounding iegaeies there was not the shadow
of a fund. He might as we'll have drawn bills
for ten millions on that pump at Aldgate. We
had on our way driven past it. While he was
writing all these magnificent donations he knew
that they were all in the air, all a falsehood.
For my part, l can see no magnanimity in q lie,
and l confess that l think one who could play
such tricks but a shabby fellow"
1t was on this occasion that he gave me an in
stance of the Importance of a very ordinary de-
gree of thoughtful common sense. He described
his very critical position on the march before the
battle of Assaye, when his small force was
threatened by an overwhelming deluge of ma
tive cavalry, and his only chance, not of victory
only, but of safety, was his getting to the other
bank of the river (Kistnah which was a few
miles on his right. He had some of the best
native guides that could be had, and he made
every possible effort to ascertain whether
the river was anywhere ~psssable, and all
his informants assured him that it was not.
He himself could not see the river, and the enc
my's cavalry was in such force that he could
not send out to reeonnoiter. At last, in ex-
RENE anxiety, he resolved to see the river him
self, and accordingly, with his most intelligent
guides and an escort of, L think he said,
all his cavalry, he pushed forward in sight of
the river in the neignborhood of Assaye, which
stood on the bank of another stream that ran
nearly parallel to that which he wished to cross.
When they came there he again questioned his
. 1900, IL. 49, All .----
ed not to exist, but he saw through his glass,
for the enemys cavalry were so strong that he
could not venture to get closer, one village on
the right or near the bank of the river, and an
another village exactly opposite on the other
bank, and Il Immediately said to myself that
men could not have built two villages so close to
one another on opposite sides of a stream with
out some habitual means of COMMUNICATION,
either by boats or a ford-most probably the
latter. On that conjecture. or rather reasoning.
in defiance of all my guides and ~informants, |
took the desperate resolution, as it seemed, of
marching for the river, and [ was right. l found
a passage, crossed my army over, had no more
to fear from the enemyS cloud OF cavalry, and
my army, small as it was, was just enough to
fill the space between the two streams, so that
both my TANKS were secure, and there | fought
and won the battle of Assaye, the bloodiest for
the numbers that L ever saw, and this was all
from my having the common sense that men
did not build villages on opposite sides of a
stream without some means of communication
between them. If l had not taken that sudden
resolution We were, L assure you, in q most dan
gerous pre6icament."
We talked of Lamartine's description of Bona
parties weakness, and even cowardice, toward
the close of Waterloo. He said: "Of course
could see nothing about it, but l can hardly be-
lieve it. I think that even with ordinary men
a great interest would overcome personal fear"
Crocker-Perhaps it is as true as your having
had eight horses knocked up or killed under yor.
Copenhagen must have been a very old horse
when l saw him last at Strathfeldsaye, if you
rode him at Copenhagen.
Duke-Oh, no. He was not named from my
having ridden him at Copenhagen; his dam was
a blood mare which Tom Grosvenor had in the
expedition to Copenhagen, and he called her
foal by that name, so that he must have been
foaled after 1906. Grosvenor sold him to Charles