JET. 31.] AND SIR JOHN MOORE. 4ll 



about Whitelock, but because I know the difficulties 

 which the army list presents to ministers on this 

 point. In the present case, however, I think there is 

 a good deal to be said. It is not only that ministers 

 erred in making a bad choice, but that the cause of it 

 was an intrigue to give Wellesley a separate oppor- 

 tunity to distinguish himself. If they had thought 

 him the fittest man to command in a service of such 

 vital importance, they ought in a manly way to have 

 given him the command at once. If not, another 

 commander should have been selected, who should 

 have been fully apprised of the views of Government, 

 and sent from the beginning to conduct operations, 

 the success of which depended so much on uniformity 

 of measures, on local knowledge, and, above all, on 

 the absence of all jealousies amongst the officers at 

 the head of the army. Looking at the matter in this 

 view, the conduct of ministers has been as unjust to 

 an individual as it has been injurious to the public 

 service. When Sir John Moore came home from 

 Sweden, they could not withhold the most unqualified 

 approbation of his conduct. But at the same time 

 that they made this acknowledgment, you must re- 

 member how very little pains were taken to conceal 

 their discontent and dislike of him. Nothing was 

 omitted to give him disgust, and to make him relin- 

 quish his command. But not succeeding in this, and 

 not being able to put Wellesley over him, they deter- 

 mined to reduce him to the level of Wellesley, by 

 putting Sir Hew Dalrymple, who had never seen any 



