So much may suffice to explain Wellington’s dealings during the winter and spring of 1813 with the British Cabinet. His advice, as we have seen, was always asked, and generally settled the problem in the way that he desired. So much cannot be said for his dealings with the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards: the Duke of York seems to have been the last person in Whitehall to recognize the commanding intellect of the great general. Though he always wrote with perfect courtesy, he evidently considered that his own views on the organization, personnel, and management of the British Army were far more important than those of the victor of Salamanca. The correspondence of Wellington with the Duke and his Military Secretary, Colonel Henry Torrens, occupies an enormous number of pages in the volumes of Dispatches and Supplementary Dispatches. Torrens, an obliging man, seems to have tried to make himself a buffer between the two contending wills, and Wellington was conscious of the fact that he was no enemy. The subjects of contention were many. One of the most important was patronage. Now that he had reached the fifth year of his command in the Peninsula, Wellington considered that he had won the right to choose his own chief subordinates. But still he could not get officers of tried incapacity removed from the front, nor prevent others, against whom he had a bad mark, from being sent out to him. When he asked for removals, he was told of ‘the difficulty of setting aside general officers who have creditably risen to high rank’ on the mere ground that they have been proved incapable, and unfit for their situations. But it was far worse that when he had requested that certain generals should not be sent out, they came to him nevertheless, despite of his definite protest; and then, when he requested that they might be removed, he was told that he would incur odium and responsibility for their removal. ‘What a situation then is mine! It is impossible to prevent incapable men from being sent to the army; and then when I complain that they have been sent, I am to be responsible! Surely the “odium” ought not to attach to the person who officially represents that they are not capable of filling their situations’--but (the aposiopesis may be filled up) to the Horse Guards for sending them out. Yet Wellington’s pen did not add the words which are necessary to complete the sense.