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The Creevey Papers
Marquess Wellesley to Thomas Creevey, 28 October 1837
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Introduction
Vol. I. Contents
Ch. I: 1793-1804
Ch. II: 1805
Ch. III: 1805
Ch. IV: 1806-08
Ch. V: 1809
Ch. VI: 1810
Ch. VII: 1811
Ch. VIII: 1812
Ch. IX: 1813-14
Ch X: 1814-15
Ch XI: 1815-16
Ch XII: 1817-18
Ch XIII: 1819-20
Vol. II. Contents
Ch I: 1821
Ch. II: 1822
Ch. III: 1823-24
Ch. IV: 1825-26
Ch. V: 1827
Ch. VI: 1827-28
Ch. VII: 1828
Ch. VIII: 1829
Ch. IX: 1830-31
Ch. X: 1832-33
Ch. XI: 1833
Ch. XII: 1834
Ch XIII: 1835-36
Ch XIV: 1837-38
Index
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“Hurlingham House, Fulham, Oct. 28th, 1837.
“My dear Mr. Creevey,

“In returning my grateful thanks for your very kind congratulations,† I trust you will believe that I fully appreciate their value. You are not of that sect of philologists who hold the use of language to be the concealment of thought, nor of that tribe of thinkers whose thoughts require concealment. You would not congratulate me on the accession of any false honor, the result of prejudice or error or of the passionate caprice of party, or of idle vanity, or of any transient effusion of the folly of the present hour; but you think the deliberate approbation of my Government in India declared by the Court of Directors (after the lapse of thirty years—after full experience of consequences and results, and after full knowledge of all

* Lady Caroline Barrington, Lady Grey’s daughter.

† The East India Company, with whom Wellesley had been at sore issue in the early years of the century, had just voted £20,000 to purchase an annuity for him.

328 THE CREEVEY PAPERS [Ch XIV.
my motives, objects and principles) a just cause of satisfaction to me. . . . In truth they have awarded to me an inestimable meed of honor, which has healed much deep sorrow, and which will render the close of a long public life not only tranquil and happy, but bright and glorious. . . . Our friend Sir John Harvey most appropriately has been dubbed a Governor. What wisdom in those who made the appointment! ‘Il est du bois dont on fait les gouverneurs.’ He was certainly born ‘your Excellency.’ I think I see him strutting up to his petty throne, preceded by Harry Grey, Ellice, Shaw, Carnac, &c., with his stomach doubly embroidered; condescending to let an occasional foul pun now and then with majestic benignity.”