The gallantry of Norman Ramsay’s battery at Fuentes d’Onoro met with no praise from this imperturbable chief. Mercer’s unquestionably cool and brave work with his battery at Waterloo was barely noticed by his general. Mercer himself, in no very complimentary spirit, says of his share in the great fight: “One day, on the Marine Parade at Woolwich, a battalion coming up in close column at the double march, Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, who stood near me, remarked, ‘That puts me in mind of your troops coming up at Waterloo, when you saved the Brunswickers.’ Until this moment I never knew that our having done so had been remarked by anybody. But he assured me it was known to the whole army; and yet the duke not only withheld that praise which was our due, but refused me the brevet rank of major; and, more than that, actually deprived me of that troop given me by Lord Mulgrave, the then Master-General, for that action, as recommended by my commanding officer, Sir G. Adams Wood. “That the duke was not ignorant of their danger, I have from Captain Baynes, our brigade-major, who told me that after Sir Augustus Frazer had been sent for us, his Grace exhibited considerable anxiety for our coming up; and that, when he saw us crossing the fields at a gallop, and in so compact a body, he actually cried out, ‘Ah! that’s the way I like to see horse-artillery move.’ Another proof.” Few men had had greater good fortune than he. “With no opportunity for the display of any kind of talent, he, after entering the army as an ensign at seventeen, became captain, M.P., and A.D.C. to the Lord-Lieutenant at twenty-one, lieutenant-colonel at twenty-four, and colonel at twenty-six. Had Wellesley been the son of an obscure gentleman he might, and probably would, with all his genius, have served in India as a subaltern, in the Peninsula in various regimental grades, and might have died, perhaps, a barrack-master on half-pay--a lieutenant-colonel with half a dozen clasps.”[50] So writes one historian of his life, and his view is shared by Brialmont, who thinks that, when his brother became Governor-General of India, “without his fraternal hand, he would probably have risen neither so quickly nor so high.” And, finally: “The duke’s unpopularity, increasing with every stage of his opposition to the Bill, reached such a height that, on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, the once idolised victor in that fight was hunted along the city by a mob, and escaped their violence only by a fortunate accident.” None can deny that his rewards were ample. He had landed in the Peninsula but the “Sepoy general,” who had, through family influence, succeeded the man who won Seringapatam. He had received after Salamanca £100,000, and, later on, was granted another £400,000. Talavera had made him a viscount, and, but a few years later, he ranked as an English duke, had received the Garter, and had been granted every possible foreign rank and decoration.