Still, a great reaction, national and personal, had followed all these years of nearly continuous war. No wonder the army was reduced, and, to avoid further reduction, hidden away. The civilian idea that armies could be raised anyhow, that any man was not only fit for, but could be easily made, a soldier, was as common then as now. Yet if these well-meaning people, people of business, had been asked if any of their clerks could be so improvised, such a remark would have been met by a scornful negative. Curious to remember that people who think so are absolutely ignorant of the training in rapid decision, quick initiative, and perfect coolness, which in the midst of battle and sudden death the soldier, and still more his leader, has to show. But human nature is human nature. Civilians held the purse-strings, and the army suffered. The canker of peace rusted all things until the rude awakening of the Crimean War, and then those who complained most of the undoubted errors committed were the very descendants of those who had refused in every way to keep sound and commercially intact that great national insurance--the army. But for India and the far East, the practice in the fighting trade would have been little or nothing for forty years! The history of the army from 1820 to 1854 is mainly domestic. Thus, between 1821 and 1827 the Household Cavalry had the cuirass restored; the list of battles on the regimental colours was increased, and regimental histories ordered to be written (by Mr. Cannon, of the War Office) by royal command; trousers took the place of leggings, and short boots and “Wellingtons” came into being; and when the Deccan prize-money was distributed, the general commanding these operations received £44,201, and the private soldier 19s. 10d.! In 1827 the Duke of York died, and was succeeded the next year by the Duke of Wellington. The late Commander-in-Chief was by no means a great general, and had lacked both tact and judgment, as was shown by his entanglement with Mrs. Clarke, which led to a heated debate in the House of Commons. But he was honest in his endeavour to improve the army as a fighting machine. When Sir Arthur Wellesley was a member of Parliament, he bore willing testimony to the work His Royal Highness had done. “Never was there army in a better state, as far as depended on the Commander-in-Chief, than the one he had commanded,” was his successor’s honest opinion in 1808 regarding His Royal Highness. There is little, if any, evidence that he was personally aware of the somewhat doubtful transactions that had been carried on, and his rigid integrity in all other matters had won him the respect of the army, when he finally ceased to command it in chief.