WELLESLEY, RICHARD COLLEY, Marquis, was the eldest son of the first Earl of Mornington, and brother to the Duke of Wellington, and was born at Grafton Street, Dublin, on the 20th of June 1760. Passing from Eton and Oxford, where he was highly distinguished as an elegant scholar, he by the death of his father unexpectedly found himself second Earl of Mornington. He took his seat in the Irish House of Peers, and soon after entered the British House of Commons. Having attracted the notice of the king during the regency debates of 1789, he was soon after appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury, was made a member of the British Privy Council, and was raised to the British peerage by the title of Baron Mornington.
Lord Mornington was made Governor-General of India on the 4th of October 1797, and he reached that country next year, whither his brother, Colonel Arthur Wellesley,
Wellington had a short while preceded him. He began his work of the government of India with much vigour, and carried it out, until his recall in 1805, with great energy. The Marquis Wellesley, for such he was made in 1799, reduced the forces of Tippoo Saib, parted that chief's dominions, raised the revenue of the East India Company from seven to fifteen millions, quelled the Maharrattas, and compelled Scindia and the Rajah of Berar, to make peace. On his return from India, the Marquis was received with much approbation by the government and by the East India Company. His rule, on the whole, though expensive, was wise and just; and, after all allowance has been made for the splendid military genius of his brother, which served so effectually to support his own measures, it cannot be doubted that his government marked the beginning of a better era of British rule in India. In 1808 he was sent as ambassador to Spain, but was recalled next year, and made Secretary of State for Foreign affairs. Under Lord Liverpool's government he gave his hearty support to the claims of the Roman Catholics, which, on his becoming Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1821, created much bitterness and animosity against him by the Protestant community of that country. An Insurrection Act was deemed necessary before the rioters could be quelled. After a short recess from the cares of government during the Grey ministry, the Marquis was again appointed in 1833 to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, but resigned on Sir Robert Peel coming to power in 1834. Except the office of lord-chamberlain, which Marquis Wellesley filled for a short time under the second Melbourne
ministry in 1835, he never afterwards was appointed to any public employment. He died at his residence in London on the 26th of September 1842, in the 83d year of his age. Besides a number of occasional pamphlets written by his lordship, a quantity of Despatches, &c., were published after his death, purporting to be written by him while governor-general of India, in 5 vols. in 1836, and in 1 vol. in 1838.