ton was
requested to make it. This course was taken because it was believed that
the private opinions of a man who had conferred such distinguished
benefits on Spain, and who had been on terms of personal intercourse and
friendship with many of the leading men, would be listened to with more
deference than even an official communication. It is unnecessary to
pursue this subject farther, as the Duke of Wellington's connexion with
it ceased; except that he gave, in the House of Lords, on the 24th of
April, a full explanation of his share in the proceedings.

In 1826, the Duke having been appointed ambassador to St. Petersburgh,
on the anniversary of the entrance of the allied army into Paris under
his command, the Emperor Nicholas addressed a letter to him, in which he
told him that in order to testify to him his particular esteem for his
great qualities and for the distinguished services he had rendered to
the whole of Europe, he had given orders that the Smolensko regiment of
infantry, formed by Peter the Great, and one of the most distinguished
of his army, which was formerly under the Duke's command in France,
should thenceforward be called the Duke of Wellington's regiment.

In 1827, on the death of the Duke of York, the public mind pointed to
the Duke of Wellington as the fit successor of his royal highness in the
important post of Commander-in-Chief, and he was immediately appointed.
The Duke held this office until the appointment of Mr. Canning to be
Prime Minister, when he resigned it, and also the Master-Generalship of
the Ordnance.

The circumstances attending this resignation must of course hold a
prominent place in any memoir of the Duke. But there were personal
matters mixed up in the affair, which make it necessary to enter into it
at some length, for the better understanding of his Grace's character.

On the death of the Earl of Liverpool, in the beginning of the year
1827, the king called on Mr. Canning to form an administration. As Mr.
Canning had all along advocated Roman Catholic Emancipation, and as the
cabinet of Lord Liverpool had firmly opposed that measure, it became a
question how far the premiership of Mr. Canning would compromise the
position of those who had hitherto acted with him in the cabinet of Lord
Liverpool. The question very soon received a practical solution, by the
simultaneous (though not concerted) resignation of six of the most
influential members of the government, including t