IF any one were desired to name the family in modern times which, like the Gracchi at Rome, peculiarly excelled all others in the virtues and in the renown of its members, there could hardly be any hesitation in pitching upon the illustrious house of which Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquess Wellesley, was the head. But I had the happiness of a long and uninterrupted friendship with that great man, and enjoyed more particularly his unreserved confidence during the last ten or twelve years of his life. It is fit, therefore, that I distrust my own feelings towards his memory; and in order to preserve impartiality, the first duty of an historian, but the most difficult in writing contemporary history, I shall confine myself in treating of him to the facts which are beyond all controversy, and which, indeed, are the best heralds of his fame.
The family of the Wellesleys originally came from Somersetshire, and by intermarriage with the Cowleys or Colleys, and by a devise from the Poles,* obtained
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