Still, it is something to know that there were cool observers even at the time who thought the Duke of Wellington had done wrong. Charles Greville, in commenting on {83} the duel, says that "everybody, of course, sees the matter in a different light; all blame Lord Winchilsea, but they are divided as to whether the Duke ought to have fought or not." "Lord Winchilsea is such a maniac, and has so lost his head, that everybody imagined the Duke would treat what he said with silent contempt." Greville utterly condemns Lord Winchilsea for having made the attack on the Duke, and for not having sent an apology when it was first required of him, but he adds: "I think, having committed the folly of writing so outrageous a letter, he did the only thing a man of honor could do in going out and receiving a shot and then making an apology, which he was all this time prepared to do, for he had it ready written in his pocket." Most of us at this time of day would be inclined to think that if Lord Winchilsea was willing to make the apology and had it ready written in his pocket, he might have acted according to a better code of honor by not exposing the Duke to the chance of killing him. However, we must not expect too much from Greville, and it is well to know, as his final verdict on the whole affair, that "I think the Duke ought not to have challenged him; it was very juvenile, and he stands in far too high a position, and his life is so much _publica cura_ that he should have treated him and his letter with the contempt they merited." The King, it seems, approved of the Duke of Wellington's conduct in making the letter the subject of a challenge and meeting his opponent in a duel. Greville goes on to remark that somebody said "the King would be wanting to fight a duel himself," whereupon some one else observed, "He will be sure to think that he has fought one."