umstances the inquiry was made. But that was
not the first communication that had passed between them on the subject.
Early in the month of April, continued the Duke, he had had a
conversation with Mr. Canning, in which, anticipating the possibility of
his being called upon to reconstruct the government, one of his plans
was to recommend that Mr. Robinson (now the Earl of Ripon) should be
raised to the peerage and be made premier. Of this plan the Duke at the
time approved, and it was with this in his mind that he wrote the first
answer, which gave Mr. Canning so much offence. Precedent, also, he
contended, was against Mr. Canning; for it appeared that in 1812, when
Lord Liverpool, by command of the Prince Regent, waited on Mr. Canning,
to know whether he would form part of the proposed administration, the
first question Mr. Canning asked of the noble earl (then in the same
position Mr. Canning was in now) was, "who was to be at the head of the
new administration?" The Duke's letter was written on the 10th, and Mr.
Canning only kissed hands as minister on the 12th; so that, even in that
point of view, the Duke's question was, he contended, necessary.

It may be said that there is enough on the face of this communication to
show that the Duke of Wellington took a narrow, and, so to speak,
technical, view of the relative positions of himself and Mr. Canning;
that the latter expected a more conventional and generous construction
of his position and proposal from one with whom he was on terms of
intimate friendship.

In answer to this, it may be as well to remind the reader that, where
the slightest movements of public men may be construed into a compromise
of public principles, a rigid attention to etiquette becomes a matter of
duty. Many acts of the Duke of Wellington, not merely as a civilian, but
even as a military commander, have been misjudged, because this obvious
principle has been overlooked.

In answer to the second charge--that of hostility to the new
administration on personal grounds--the Duke referred to the known
opinions of Mr. Canning on the Catholic question. How could he be in
office under a minister whom he must oppose on, at least, one vital
question of domestic policy? How could he give the right honourable
gentleman that fair support which one member of a cabinet had a right to
expect from another? The principles of the new government could not be
those of that of the Earl of Liverpool. The principl