Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/583

 1920 WELLINGTON AT VERONA 575 siderable difficulties of the new secretary during his first few months of office. If he did deceive Canning — ^and it can be called nothing less than deceit, in view of the studied silence of his dispatches and letters to Canning as to the slightest change in English policy at the congress — he could not under the circum- stances have reconciled his action with any strict code of honour. And in view of his known character and his military standard of obedience to his superiors, the evidence must be decisive before we judge Wellington guilty of dishonourable conduct. In this case the evidence is very far from being decisive. The major part of the case against Wellington rests on Bois-le-r Comte's witness, though Mr. Green admits that Bois-le-Comte's own theory as to the reasons for Wellington's conduct is falla- cious. But can Bois-le-Comte be regarded as an altogether satisfactory authority ? He was not even in as good a position for obtaining information as Chateaubriand during the first part of the congress, and we know that, until Montmorency left Verona, Chateaubriand was able to learn comparatively little. Much of his information was probably obtained from his official superior. La Ferronays, who, being ambassador to Russia, was on more or less intimate terms with the Emperor Alexander. That in itself supplies the reason for the necessity of obtaining confirmation of his reports from other sources. La Ferronays was not admitted into the most important conferences,^ and though it is probably true that the chief personages at Verona discussed their important schemes and expedients privately before producing them in formal conference, they are hardly likely to have discussed them in front of minor men at the congress. Most of them were probably brought forward in pri- vate interviews such as the one at which Wellington mooted the idea of a neutral nation's ' good offices ' to Montmorency as a means of enabling France to withdraw from her rather embarrassing position in relation to Spain without being in- volved in war.^ The secrecy which was supposed to envelop all proceedings at the important conferences may be measured by Montmorency's dismay at finding that Chateaubriand was aware of something that had passed at one of these meetings,^ and though probably Chateaubriand was not the only diploma- tist to be informed of secrets that he was not supposed to know, still it is obvious that any one outside the charmed circle could only get information at second or third hand. Bois-le-Comte's evidence cannot then be allowed to outweigh that of the men who dealt directly with Wellington. And the evidence we have ' Letter of Montmorency of 28 October (Villele, M^moires, iii. 1(34).
 * See Gabriac in Revue des Deux Mondes, cxliii, p. 563.
 * Letter of Montmorency of 13 November {ihid. 210-11).