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Written for Burke’s Weekly.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
ET me tell you boys some
thing about one of the
greatest military men the
world has yet produced.
Arthur Wellesley, better
Cfo known as the Duke of Wellington,
f§p was born in Ireland on the Ist ol
sh May, 1769—just a little more than
f one hundred years ago. Some
writers say that he was born in Dublin,
an d others at Dungan Castle, in the
county of Meath. He received his early
education at Eton, a celebrated English
school, and afterwards was sent to the
Military College of Angers, in France.
At both of these schools he was consider
ed a boy of ordinary powers, who gave
no promise of future greatness.
At the early age of eighteen, he was
commissioned as Ensign in the
British army, and through the
influence of his friends, rose
rapidly, until at the early age
of twenty-seven he became a Col
onel, and was sent to India. He
was so successful in his campaigns
in that country, that he soon took
high rank among the military
heroes of Great Britain. On his
return to England, in 1805, he
received a vote of thanks of tlic
British Parliament, a sword of
honor, and was made a Knight
Commander of the Bath.
In 1807 he was actively em
ployed in Spain, and for his suc
cess at the battle of Talavera, and
the passage of the river Douro,
he received the title of Baron
Douro and Miscount Wellington, a vote
of thanks from Parliament, and a yearly
pension of £2OOO, or SIO,OOO in gold. In
1311 he received the thanks of the Crown
and Parliament for having driven the
French out of Portugal, and on the 18th
oi August, 1813, he was, for gallant con
duct, created Marquis of Douro and Duke
of Wellington.
But the action which gave Wellington
his greatest reputation was the battle of
II aterloo, which witnessed the downfall
Napoleon Bonaparte, probably the
greatest military chieftain the world ever
saw. Wellington was at Vienna, when
Napoleon’s escape from the island ot
Film summoned him to Belgium, to take
command of the allied army.
Icm will remember that Napoleon, on
Die 11th of April, 1814, after an unsuc
cessful campaign against the allied armies
°1 nearly half of Europe, had abdicated,
01 renounced, the thrones of France and
Ital y, an d had been banished to Elba, a
BURKE’S WEEKLY.
small island in the Mediterranean Sea,
where he was to retain his imperial title,
and receive an income from France. Ten
months afterwards, and while the allied
sovereigns were assembled at Vienna, he
escaped from Elba, with bis imperial
guard of 1000 men, landed at Cannes, a
seaport in the south of France, and at
once advanced towards Paris. Every*
where the people flocked to his standard,
and he soon found himself again at the
head of an army of 200,000 men.
The allied army, under Wellington, is
said to have numbered half a million of
men. On the 18th of June, 1815, these
two grand armies met at Waterloo. The
Prussian army was commanded by Mar
shal Blucher, the English by Wellington,
and the French were, for the last time,
under the eye of Napoleon. The battle
was long and obstinately contested, and
resulted in the complete overthrow of the
French army, and the downfall of Napo
leon. , . ,
With the victory of Waterloo, closed
Wellington’s military career, but he still
devoted his services to his country, and
filled various high offices of State. lie
died suddenly September 14, 1852, in the
eighty-fourth year of his age.
The lesson to be learned from the life
of the Duke of Wellington is an impor
tant one. “For him who follows the
trade of arms, fixity of purpose and stead
fastness of will are indispensable if he
would attain distinction or satisfactorily
tread the paths of duty.” ‘To scorn de
light and live laborious days;’ to endure
cheerfully the inclemencies of climate or
scarcity of food ; to watch, and wait, an
persevere; to seize every opportunity ot
acquiring information, to kcip eve
the “ path of duty,” which is always the
“path of glory”—it is thus, and thus on
ly, that the soldier can hope to command
success. And what is true of the soldier
is as true of every other state in life.
V ill, patience, promptitude, purpose,—
these are the qualities which will always
command success.
THE POWER OF A WORD.
N the green hills of Ver
pV mont, a mother was hold-
D'g by the right hand a
son sixteen years old,
mad with the love of
dfag. the sea. And as she stood by the
«£ garden gate one morning, she said :
irk “ Edward, they tell me, for I
» never saw the ocean, that the great
temptation of a seaman’s life is drink.
Promise me, before you quit your moth
er’s hand, that you will never drink.”
“And,” said he, (for he told me the
story,) “I gave her the promise, and I
went the broad globe over to Cal
cutta and the Mediterranean, San
Francisco, the Cape of Good
Hope, the North Pole and the
South. I saw them all in forty
years, and I never saw a glass
filled with sparkling liquor that
my mother’s form by the gate
did not rise before me; and to
day I am innocent of the taste
of liquor.”
Was not that sweet evidence of
the power of a single word ? Yet
that was not half.
“ For,” said he, “ yesterday
there came into my counting
room a man of forty years and
asked me :
“ ‘ Do you know me?’
“ ‘No,’ 1 replied.
‘“Well,’ said he, ‘I was once brought
drunk into your presence on shipboard;
you were a passenger; the captain kick
ed me aside; you took me to your berth
and kept me there till I had slept oft the
intoxication ; you then asked me if I had
a mother. I said I had never know n a
word from her lips. You told me of yours
at the garden gate, and to-day 1 am mas
ter of one of the finest packets in New
York; and I came to ask you to come
and see me.’ ”
How far that little candle throws its
beams! That mother’s word on the green
hills of Vermont! O, God be thanked
for the mighty power of a single word !
♦♦♦ —
Truth and Honor.— The heaviest fet
ter that ever weighed down the limbs of
a captive is as the web of a gossamer,
compared with the pledge of a man of
honor. The wall of stone and the bar of
iron may be broken, but the plighted
word never.
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