department for proof that every public measure of the United States had been promptly and officially communicated to the French government; but he wrote home no report of any conference with Cadore, he expressed no opinion as to the faith of the Emperor's promise, made no further protest against the actual reprisals, and required no indemnity for past spoliations. In fact, no action was asked from him; but he lent himself readily to the silence that was needed. Cadore reported1 to the Emperor that Armstrong "before his departure wishes to open (engager) none of those difficult questions which he foresees must rise between the two governments, in order to arrive in America without having seen the fading of the glory he attaches to having obtained the Note of August 5." Too happy in the good fortune that threw an apparent triumph into his hands at the moment when he was ending his diplomatic career in disgust, he felt anxious only to escape before another turn of the wheel should destroy his success. He remained in Paris more than a month after receiving Cadore's letter of August 5, but reserved for a personal interview whatever information he had to give the President; and his letters, like his despatches, expressed no inconvenient opinions. Sept. 12, 1810, his long and extremely interesting mission ended, and he quitted Paris on his homeward journey, leaving the Legation in charge of Jonathan Russell

1 Rapport à l'Empereur, Août, 1810; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS. vol. lxiv. pièce 81.

of Rhode Island. Armstrong's last official act was to write from Bordeaux a letter to Pinkney at London, declaring that the conditions imposed by Napoleon on the repeal of his decrees were "not precedent, as has been supposed, but subsequent." 1

1 Armstrong to Pinkney, Sept. 29, 1810; State Papers, iii. 386.

CHAPTER XIII.

WHILE Napoleon labored to reconstruct his system mutilated by American legislation, the Government of Great Britain sank lower and lower toward disappearance, while the star of Spencer Perceval shone alone with dull lustre on the British horizon. When the Portland ministry went to pieces in September, 1809, Perceval became of necessity master of the empire. Canning had quarrelled with him, and refused office except as prime minister. Castlereagh had been so lately disgraced that he could bring only weakness to the Government if he rejoined it. Both Castlereagh and Sidmouth refused to serve with Canning on any terms. The Whigs, represented by Lord Grenville and Lord Grey, were excluded by the King's prejudices, by their own pledges to the Irish Catholics, and by the great preponderance of Tory opinion in the country. The Duke of Portland was dying; King George himself was on the verge of insanity, and every one supposed that the Prince of Wales, if he became regent, would at once appoint a ministry from among his Whig friends. This stalemate, where every piece on the chessboard stood in the

way of its neighbor, and none could move while the King and Spencer Perceval remained, seemed likely to end in the destruction of the British empire. An economist wiser and better educated than Napoleon might easily have inferred, as he did, that with time England must succumb.

Perceval and his remaining friends-Liverpool, Bathurst, Eldon - looked about them for allies. They would not, indeed they could not, surrender the government to others, for no one offered to take it. In the House of Lords they were strong, but in the Commons they had no speaker except Perceval, while the opposition was strengthened by Canning, and Castlereagh could not be safely reckoned as more than neutral. They sought for allies both old and young in the Commons, but their search was almost fruitless. They could find only young Viscount Palmerston, about five-andtwenty years of age, who took the subordinate place of Secretary at War.

Nothing remained but to carry on the government by the Peers, with Perceval as its only important representative in the Commons. The Lord Hawkesbury of 1802, who had become Lord Liverpool at his father's death, and was actually head of the Home Office, succeeded Castlereagh as head of the War Department. Spencer Perceval took the Duke of Portland's place as first Lord of the Treasury, retaining his old functions as Chancellor of the Exchequer. These changes brought no new strength

into the Cabinet; but Canning's place at the Foreign Office remained to be filled, and common consent fixed upon one person as alone competent to bring with him to the position a weight of character that could overbalance the losses the Cabinet had suffered.

This person, hitherto unmentioned, was Richard Colley Wesley, or Wellesley, born in Ireland in 1760, eldest son of the first Earl of Mornington, whose younger son Arthur was born in 1769. Another brother, Henry, born in 1773, rose to high rank in diplomacy under the later title of Lord Cowley. In 1809 these three brothers were all actively employed in the public service; but the foremost of the three was the eldest, the Marquess Wellesley, whose reputation still overshadowed that of Arthur, then just called to the peerage Sept. 4, 1809, as Viscount Wellington of Talavera, in reward of his recent battle with Marshal Victor.

An Irish family neither wealthy nor very distinguished, the Wellesleys owed their success to their abilities. The second Lord Mornington, Marquess Wellesley, sprang into fame as a favorite of William Pitt, who showed his power by pushing young men like Richard Wesley and George Canning into positions of immense responsibility. Perhaps the favor shown to the former may in part have had its source in some resemblance of character which caused Pitt to feel a reflection of himself, for Mornington was a scholar and an orator. His Latin verses were an or