362 THE FIFTH DUKE OF RICHMOND, K.G. 



great Duke of Wellington entertained the great- 

 est objection to military medals and decorations, 

 which, in common with many other great captains 

 of the past, he regarded as likely to induce 

 ambitious young officers to indulge in ostentatious 

 exhibitions of daring, which were of little or no 

 benefit to the cause for which they fought, but, as 

 the Iron Duke believed, were often undertaken in 

 order to attract special notice to their perpetrators. 

 Under these circumstances the medals for the Pen- 

 insula and Waterloo were not presented to the 

 gallant soldiers who had so richly merited them, 

 for more than thirty years after Waterloo w T as 

 fought. At last the Duke of Richmond deter- 

 mined to strike in on behalf of those of his 

 humble comrades whom in 1847 time had still 

 spared. Rising in his place in the House of 

 Lords in May 1847, the Duke indignantly re- 

 plied to a sneering remark made by the Marquis 

 of Londonderry, who deprecated " the prostitu- 

 tion of rewards which had recently been squeezed 

 out of the Government." Nothing could have 

 been more dignified and characteristic than the 

 Duke of Richmond's reply. " After the attack," 

 he commenced, " which has been made by the 

 noble and gallant Marquis, who has the audacity 

 to speak of these medals and rewards as being 

 prostituted, I claim your Lordships' kind indul- 

 gence while I attempt to reply to those insulting 

 words. He says that these rewards are prosti- 



