admirable mother to the minds of these two great men, while still in the
pliant season of youth, that we owe that high appreciation of truth and
honour, and that sense of the identity of virtue and duty, which, while
their wisdom and prowess were spreading our military fame, and extending
the sphere of our civilising influence, enabled them also, by the
exaltation of our national character, to secure for their country the
respect of all the world.

One of the first fruits of early lessons or of later reflection upon the
mind of the young Earl of Mornington was, that he took upon himself the
payment of his father's debts, an act entirely voluntary on his part.

Of Lord Mornington, afterwards the celebrated Marquis Wellesley, it is
unnecessary to say more in this place than that he was in the year 1797
appointed to the Governor-Generalship of India, in which high office he
was enabled to develop, without the suspicion of undue preference, the
peculiar talents of his younger brother--talents which his
discriminating mind would probably have discovered even without the
assistance of such close proximity.

To return to the immediate subject of these Memoirs:--His education
commenced at Eton, from whence he went to the military academy at
Angers, in the department of the Maine and Loire, there being at that
period no institution of the kind in this country.

On his return from the Continent, young Wellesley received (on the 7th
of March, 1787), an ensigncy in the 41st regiment, he being then in his
eighteenth year. He became lieutenant on the 25th of December in the
same year; captain, on the 30th of June, 1791; major, on the 30th of
April, 1798; and lieut.-colonel on the 30th of September following.