THE "VICEROY'S PARTY/' DUNDAS 33

tained with Mr. Gladstone, whom she disliked, or with any other Minister whom her loyal people placed in office. In the reign of George III. that was not so. The King avowedly had a party and gave it all his support. In transferring therefore to Corsica, as he intended to do, the British Constitution, Sir Gilbert Elliot was quite consistent with his own ideal in avowedly becoming the support of one party, and of one party only. It was unfortunate for us that this should be the form of the British Constitution applied to Corsica; but it was correctly studied from the original model.

The General Dundas in Corsica is the " Sir David Dundas" who became subsequently Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, and had long before that time been its first effective organiser. He introduced unity where all previously had been uncertain and dependent on individual caprice. We have a graphic picture of him from Bunbury as "a tall spare man, crabbed and austere, dry in his looks and demeanour. He had made his way from a poor condition (he told me himself that he walked from Edinburgh to London to enter himself as a fireworker in the Artillery), and there were peculiarities in his habits and style which excited some ridicule among young officers. But though it appeared a little out of fashion, there was ' much care and valour in that Scotchman.7"1 Not at all a man likely to find favour with Sir Gilbert. From him must be carefully distinguished " Henry Dundas," subsequently Viscount Melville, who during the whole Corsican period was Secretary for War, having become the first holder of that office in 1794,

1 Bunbury's " Narrative of some Passages in the Great War with France," p. 46.

VOL. I C