your country to battle, with the same deliberate valour,
and triumphant success which have long since rendered your
name illustrious in the remotest parts of this empire.
Military glory has ever been dear to this nation; and great
military exploits, in the field or upon the ocean, have
their sure reward in royal favour, and the gratitude of parliament."

Sir Arthur, in his reply, observed:--

"No man can value more highly than I do the
honourable distinction which has been conferred upon
me--a distinction which it is in the power of the
representatives of a free people alone to bestow, and
which it is the peculiar advantage of the officers and
soldiers in the service of his majesty to have held out
to them as the object of their ambition, and to receive
as the reward of their services."

The opening allusion of the speaker to "contending opinions on other
matters," was intended to mark the sense of the house that Sir Arthur
Wellesley, at least, was free from blame as regarded recent transactions
in the Peninsula. That the government thought so also, and had at last
learned to appreciate the value of an officer whom they had so recently
trammelled, was evidenced by the appointment of Sir Arthur, on the 2nd
of April, to the command of the army in Portugal.

Towards the close of the previous year, complaint had been made, in the
House of Commons, of Sir Arthur holding the office of secretary for
Ireland while in the Peninsula. On the 14th of April, he resigned that
office, and on the 22nd, he arrived at Lisbon and assumed the command of
an army, disproportioned, indeed, to the service expected of it, and
still more to that which they afterwards achieved, but strong in its
confidence in a general who had never made a false step, or suffered a
defeat.

On the 12th of May, he carried Oporto by a _coup de main_. So complete
was the surprise, that Sir Arthur and his staff sat down to the dinner
which had been prepared for the French commander.

On the 28th July following, the battle of Talavera was fought, after
which (on the 26th August), Sir Arthur was raised to the peerage by the
titles of Baron Douro of Wellesley and Viscount Wellington of Talavera.
In the February following, he received the thanks of parliament for
Talavera, and a pension of L2000 per annum was voted to him and his two
next heirs male.

So inferior was the numerical force of his army to that of the enemy
tha