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WELLESLEY, Marquess.
The despatches and correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, K.G.
during his lordship's mission to Spain as ambassador extraordinary to the Spanish Junta in 1809. Edited by Montgomery Martin.
First edition. "Wellesley, once despot of 150 million people, like Warren Hastings before him and George Curzon after, proved a difficult, indeed embarrassing, figure to fit back into the intricate pattern of British politics and high office … Ultimately a position was found for him, and in 1809 he was dispatched as ambassador-extraordinary to the embattled Spanish junta in Seville. Here, he found himself once again in the same theatre of military and diplomatic activity as his brother Sir Arthur Wellesley. His main aim being to support his brother's army in the Peninsula, Wellesley objected strongly to Castlereagh's attempt to open a second front against Napoleon through his Walcheren expedition to Belgium. To Wellesley, ever alert in protection of Britain's international trading position, a Napoleonic conquest of Spain was a direct threat to Britain's growing trade with Spanish America. Equally, he believed that British support for a weakened Spain would help further prise open the Spanish monopoly of its colonial trade … Wellesley's main diplomatic effort was a prolonged battle to squeeze supplies and support out of an impoverished Spanish regime by threatening the withdrawal of British forces into Portugal. He also reinforced Canning's attempt to broaden the basis of the Spanish junta's support by having called a general representative assembly, or cortes" (ODNB).
Octavo, original boards with paper label to the spine. Armorial bookplate of Worcestershire county historian John William Willis Bund to the front pastedown. Boards just a little rubbed, some chipping at the extremities, mild foxing to the fore-edge, else a very good copy.
