Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/198

 168 TRANSACTIONS CHAP, he was appoiuted military secretary to the Com- If Tf he remained until the death of the Duke of Wellington in 1852, After that event he was made Master-General of the Ordnance, was ap- pointed a Privy Councillor, and raised to the peer- age. In February 1854 he became a full General. Thus, from his very boyhood until the autumn of 1852, Lord Fitzroy Somerset had passed his life under the immediate guidance of the Duke of Wellington. The gain was not without its drawback ; for in proportion as the great Duke's comprehensive grasp and prodigious power ol work made him independent and self-sufiicing, his subordinates were of course relieved from the necessity, and even shut out from the opportu- nity, of thinking for themselves ; but still, to have been in the close presence and intimacy ol Wellington from the very rising of his fame in Europe — to have toiled at the desk where the immortal despatches were penned — to have rid- den at his side and carried his orders in all the great campaigns — and then, when peace returned, to have engaged in the labours of diplomacy and military administration under the auspices of the same commanding mind, — all this was to have a wealth of experience which common times can- not give. But for more than thirty years of his life Lord Eaglan had been administering the cuirent busi- ness of military offices in peace-time, and tliis is a kind of experience which, if it be very long pro-
 * _ mander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, and there