In the reign of Henry VIII. when many gentlemen of family were induced, by royal grants, to emigrate to Ireland, two brothers of this family, Walter and Robert Cowley, established themselves at Kilkenny, and were presented by the king, in his 22d year, with a grant of the office of clerk of the crown in chancery, for and during their lives respectively.

It is evident that both brothers had been brought up to the bar; for the younger became master of the rolls, and the eldest, Walter, ancestor of the present family, was appointed solicitorgeneral of Ireland in 1537; but having surrendered that office in 1546, he was two years afterwards raised to that of surveyorgeneral of that kingdom.

His eldest son, Sir Henry Colley, appears to have dedicated himself to the profession of arms; for he held a commission from Queen Elizabeth of captain in the army, from whom he also received a warrant, in 1559, to execute martial law in the districts of Offaley, Carbury, &c. His conduct in this important commission was so satisfactory, that he was soon after appointed a commissioner of array for the county of Kildare; and chosen representative for the borough of Thomastown in the county of Kilkenny in the parliament of that year. He was likewise knighted by Sir Henry Sidney, the lord deputy, and appointed a member of the privy council.

This able statesman, by his Lady Catherine, who was a daughter of Sir Thomas Cusack of Cussington, in the county of Meath, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, had three sons, of whom the second, Sir Henry, of Castle Carbury, was the immediate ancestor of the present line. During his father's lifetime, and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, he was constable of Philipstown Fort, afterwards seneschal of the king's county; and, in 1561, appointed by the Earl of Sussex, the lord deputy, providore of the army, similar to the modern office of commissary-general.

He married Anne, daughter of his grace, Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, and his eldest son, Sir Henry Colley, succeeded him at Castle Carbury, of whom we only find it recorded that he married Anne, daughter and co-heiress of Christopher Peyton, Esq. auditor-general of Ireland; and his eldest son, Dudlen

Colley, of Castle Carbury, Esq. having distinguished himself much in the royal cause, was appointed an officer in the army by King Charles II. soon after the Restoration, and had also a grant and confirmation of the lands of Ardkill and Collingstown in Kildare. He was also a member of parliament for Philipstown. This Dudley married Anne, daughter of Henry Warren of Grangebeg, in the county of Kildare, Esq. and had a numerous family by her, of whom Henry was his successor; and a daughter Elizabeth married Garret Wellesley (or Wesley) of Dangan, in the county of Meath, Esq. a family of ancient Saxon extraction, being settled in the county of Sussex.

This Henry Colley, Esq. by his marriage with Mary, only daughter of Sir William Usher, of Dublin, knt. left a numerous family and his youngest son, Richard Colley, was the first who adopted the name of Wellesley, as heir to his first cousin, Garret Wesley, of Dangan, who left him all his estates on condition of his taking the name and arms of that family, all which was granted, and recorded in the herald's office, &c. in 1728. He appears to have held several offices under the crown: was auditor and registrar of the royal hospital of Kilmainham, second chamberlain of the court of exchequer, sheriff of the county of Meath in 1734, and member of parliament for the borough of Trim in the same year. In consideration of his public services, his majesty George II. was pleased to create him a peer of Ireland, by the title of Baron of Mornington, in 1747. He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Sale, L. L. D. registrar of the diocess of Dublin, and representative in parliament for the borough of Carysfort; and his eldest son, Garret, having succeeded him in his barony, was soon after, in 1760, created Viscount Wellesley and Earl of Mornington, having before that held the office of custos rotulorum of the county of Meath. He married Anne, eldest daughter of the right honourable Arthur Hill, Viscount Dungannon, and had issue, the present Marquis of Wellesley, William, now Wellesley Pole, in consequence of inheriting the estates of William Pole, of Ballifin, Esq. ARTHUR, the subject of our present biography, and several other children.

The first earl having died whilst a great part of his family were

yet in their infancy, a most important care devolved upon their amiable mother, whose prudent and energetic conduct overcame the obstacles attendant upon an impaired state of fortune, arising from causes which it had been impossible to counteract. It has been well said, that her wise and liberal economy, in conjunction with the energies of an active and well informed mind, had supplied not only the deficiencies of fortune, but also the loss of a father. It must be confessed, indeed, that much of this power to do good on the part of Lady Mornington arose from the very generous and liberal conduct of the present marquis, who, with a magnanimity and fraternal conduct which must always redound to his honour, gave up the entire management of the family estates to her guidance; and, though in the heyday of youth, not only submitted cheerfully to those prudential restraints which her parental care suggested, but actually paid off all his father's debts, out of an honourable regard to his memory.

ARTHUR, the subject of our present biography, was born at Dangan, near Dublin, on the 1st of May, 1769: and at an early age was sent to Eton, that he might receive the benefit of a public education; and, as he had chosen the army for his profession, he afterwards went, at the close of the American war, to Angiers, in France, in order that he might acquire the theory of military science in that celebrated school, then under the direction of the much esteemed Pignerol, who has long been considered as the Vauban of modern warlike architecture and engineering.

While pursuing his studies here, he received his commission as ensign, the 25th December, 1787, and, at the age of twentythree, he bore the rank of captain in the 18th regiment of light dragoons, from which corps, on the 30th of April, 1793, he was appointed to the majority of his present regiment, the 33d, in the room of Major Gore, who then resigned.

In this junior rank of field-officer he did not long remain, but availed himself of his seniority to purchase in succession from Lieutenant Colonel Yorke, who resigned his commission in that regiment; and his appointment took place on the 30th September,

1793.

Lieutenant Colonel Wellesley, now scarcely four and twenty,

engaged in active service under his gallant countryman the Earl of Moira, and early in 1794 was actually embarked with that force which was intended to have erected the standard of loyalty in Brittany; but the fate of the Netherlands and of Flanders was no sooner decided by the unfortunate issue of the early part of the campaign of that year, under his royal highness the Duke of York, than his lordship was ordered to proceed with his little army to Ostend.

After the surrender of Tournay, indeed on the very day on which the capitulation was signed, his royal highness was obliged to abandon his position near Oudenarde, and to retire towards Antwerp; to which city he sent his sick and wounded. The French immediately took possession of Oudenarde, and, most fortunately for themselves, were there supplied, as well as at Tournay, with large quantities both of military stores and provisions, for want of which they must otherwise have soon been in extreme distress.

At this eventful period, the little army under the Earl of Moira arrived at Ostend; and his lordship, having got intelligence of the perilous situation of his royal highness's forces, soon found it necessary to call a council of war, in which it was considered that it would tend more to the ultimate safety of the British army to proceed immediately to its relief, than to risk the chance of a siege, which the French would certainly undertake; and in which even the bravest and most protracted defence of the garrison, whilst the French were pressing on the duke with such an imposing force, would not tend in the slightest degree to make a diversion in his favour.

The Earl of Moira himself and his small force had now to proceed by land to the British head-quarters in the face of a superior enemy; he had taken care, however, with the most admirable degree of military precision, to secure a communication, and to ensure his junction with that part of the allied army under General Clairfayt; and the rapidity of the march fortunately exposed nothing to chance, though the French general had orders to strike at the corps at all events, and had taken every preliminary measure for that purpose.

Though the eyacuation did not take place until the 1st of July. yet Lord Moira had pushed on so fast with the main body of his little force, that, on the 29th of June, he had arrived at Malle, only four miles from Bruges, on the way to Ghent.

On this route he received a letter from the Duke of York. (which had come round by Sluys in consequence of great part of the country being in possession of the enemy,) desiring him to enbark his whole army, and to join him at Antwerp; but the proceedings were too far advanced to execute this order. SOOR after he received another pressing order to march by Sluys and Sas de Grand, the Bruges road appearing impracticable to his royal highness, and thus to join the British army more rapidly than the passage by sea would allow. Feeling himself completely now justified in his course of proceedings, this prudent and indefatigable officer had, after a most tedious and difficult march, and encountering continual obstacles, reached the town of Alost; but such had been the previous sufferings of his troops, that, from their leaving Ostend until their gaining that position, they were without baggage or tents, and exposed through all their route to the inclemency of a wet and unhealthy season.

Presuming on the fatigue they had endured, and trusting to their consequent weariness, the French attacked them on the 6th of July. The piquets being driven in, they penetrated into the town; but, upon his lordship advancing with a reinforcement, the enemy retreated in confusion.

Though the name of Lieutenant Colonel Wellesley was not mentioned particularly in this affair, we have been given to understand that he (although his own regiment was embarked) had accompanied the army on their march, and commanded a cover ing party in the rear, on which service he was highly instru mental in the repulse of the French army upon this occasion.

Two days after this action, on the 8th of July, Lord Moira effected a junction with the Duke of York. Soon after the Earl of Moira resigned his command, and returned to England.

During the progress of the retreat of his royal highness, the French having passed the morass at Piel, deemed an insuperable barrier between the contending powers, a sudden attack was made upon all the posts on the right of the British army on the