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Tedworth Park, and spoke most highly of their efficiency 

 and soldier-like appearance. The duke had a great 

 regard and respect for Assheton Smith, whom he thought 

 the model of a straightforward, manly, sensible English- 

 man. It was always a subject for regret to the hero of 

 Waterloo, that the mighty hunter had not joined the 

 Army, ' for,' said he, ' he would have made one of the best 

 cavalry officers in Europe,' and he frequently remarked 

 that many of his most distinguished cavalry officers in 

 the Peninsular War owed their horsemanship to the 

 example of Assheton Smith. The Duke of Wellington, 

 by the way, was himself a warm patron of fox-hunting. 

 Once when he was asked to subscribe to a pack which 

 was in financial difficulties, he said, ' Get what you can, 

 and put my name down for the difference.' The 

 difference was £600 a year, which the duke cheerfully 

 paid for many years. 



As a Master of Foxhounds, Assheton Smith was 

 extremely scrupulous in all that pertains to the etiquette 

 of the hunting-field — the essence of neatness in his own 

 person, he detested the slightest appearance of slovenliness 

 in anyone else, and he generally showed pretty plainly 

 his disapproval of any laxity in this respect among those 

 who came out with his hounds. Of his own rights he 

 was jealous in the extreme, and would allow no hounds 

 but his own to draw a covert, however outlying, which 

 he believed to form part of his own country. Yet no 

 man was more courteous when a neighbouring pack 

 accidentally clashed with his own. 



For thirty-two years he hunted the Tedworth without 

 asking for any subscription — all he requested of the 

 landowners in return for the sport he gave them was that 

 they would oblige him by preserving foxes. He was 



