honours is not to adorn a favoured character, nor to extol individual reputation, nor to transmit an esteemed name with lustre to posterity, but to commemorate public services and to perpetuate public principles. The conscious sense of the motives, objects, and results of my endeavours to serve my country in this arduous station inspires me with an unfeigned solicitude that the principles which I revere should be preserved for the security of the interests now entrusted to my charge and destined hereafter to engage my lasting and affectionate attachment.’
The most brilliant part of Wellesley's career was unquestionably his government of India. He must be regarded as one of the three men who consolidated the empire of which Clive laid the foundation. In many respects he resembled Dalhousie more than Hastings; but the difficulties which he was called upon to encounter were greater than those which confronted Dalhousie. His services in Spain as ambassador to the Spanish junta, and his subsequent action as foreign secretary in London, must be regarded as having largely conduced to the success of the Peninsular war in the indefatigable support which he gave to his illustrious brother. His policy in Ireland was wise and statesmanlike. This cannot be said of the foreign policy which he advocated in 1814 and afterwards, when, if his views had prevailed, the peace of Europe which followed the downfall of Napoleon would have been indefinitely postponed. As a member of a constitutional government such as that of Great Britain he was somewhat out of place owing to his autocratic habits and the contempt which he felt, and did not attempt to conceal, for the failings of his less able colleagues. Mackintosh called him ‘a sultanized Englishman.’ He was fond of display, but here he seems to have been actuated not so much by vanity, although he was by no means free from self-consciousness, as by a deliberate conviction of the expediency of maintaining pomp and state, especially when dealing with orientals.
His style of writing and speaking was largely affected by his constant study of the great orators and poets of antiquity. Although he professed the greatest admiration for the oratory of Demosthenes and the terse writing of Tacitus, the model which he practically followed was to be found in the more diffuse speeches of Cicero.
He was gifted with a keen sense of humour and was a very popular member of society, especially with the fair sex. Notwithstanding his indefatigable devotion to his public duties, his pursuits in his moments of leisure were those of a man of pleasure, as well in middle age as in youth.
In the latter part of his life his chief friend was Lord Brougham, whose gifts as a scholar made them congenial companions. Wellesley continued his classical studies and writings up to the last year of his life. In 1840 he privately printed (and often revised later) a little book entitled ‘Primitiæ et Reliquiæ,’ for the most part composed of Latin verses written by him at different periods of his life. In 1841, on the occasion of a statue being erected in honour of his brother by the citizens of London, he wrote a Latin inscription. Several of his Latin poems appeared in the ‘Anthologia Oxoniensis.’ But Wellesley's literary studies were not confined to the ancient classics; he was a good Italian scholar and had an extensive knowledge of the Italian poets, and especially of Dante. Shakespeare also was often quoted in his letters and despatches.
Wellesley died at Kingston House, Brompton, on 26 Sept. 1842 in his eighty-third year, and was buried at Eton in the college chapel on 8 Oct. His widow, who was a lady of the bedchamber to the Queen-dowager Adelaide, died at Hampton Court Palace on 17 Dec. 1853.
The best portrait of Wellesley is by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and a good sketch was made by Count D'Orsay in 1841. Portraits by J. Hoppner and C. Fortescue Bute are in the possession of the Duke of Wellington; and a third, by George Romney, is at Eton College. Two portraits of Wellesley by J. P. Davis, and a marble bust by John Bacon, are in the National Portrait Gallery of London. A bust is also at Eton. A marble statue, subscribed for by British residents, was erected in Government House, Calcutta.
[Montgomery's Martin's Despatches, Minutes, and Correspondence of the Marquis Wellesley, K.G., during his Administration in India, London, 1836–7, 5 vols. 8vo; Selections from Wellesley's Despatches, ed. Sidney J. Owen, Oxford, 1897; Pearce's Memoirs and Correspondence of Marquis Wellesley, 1846; Malleson's Life of the Marquis Wellesley (Statesmen Series), 1889; Thornton's Hist. of the British Empire in India, 1842, vol. iii.; Torrens's Marquis Wellesley, 1880; Hutton's Marquis Wellesley (Rulers of India Series), 1893.]
WELLESLEY-POLE, WILLIAM, third Earl of Mornington in the peerage of Ireland and first Baron Maryborough of the United Kingdom (1763–1845), born at Dangan Castle on 20 May 1763, was the second son of Garrett Wellesley, first earl [q. v.], and the brother of the Marquis Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington. Having been educated
