Has been attributed to the Duke of Wellington, although there appears there is no direct proof he is the author.

In 1805, Major-General Arthur Wellesley returned home after a successful campaign in India. (He always considered Assaye to be his best conducted battle.) While waiting his next assignment, he spent some time in London, and met Harriette Wilson, who was considered a bewitching courtesan. (He was also expressing an interest in Kitty Pakenham about this same time.)

In 1824 Harriette was living in Paris with a "disreputable" Colonel Rochfort. In desperate need of money she turned to writing her Memoirs. She was aided in this by her publisher, Joseph Stockdale, whose publicastions included several other works of scandal. A further monetary opportunity was found in offering her former beaus the opportunity to have themselves written out for a payment of £200.

On Dec. 16, 1824, Stockdale wrote the duke, that the Memoirs, contained "various anecdotes of your Grace which it would be most desirable to withold", and that he had stopped the press for the moment, but publication was to take place next week. The Duke's note of reply has not survived, but was the now famous, "Publish and be damned."

Legend has it that the Duke wrote those works in large red ink across the origanal request. However, it is pointed out that there is nothing like that across the original, also while the Duke did reply be writing in space between lines, or cross-wise, he sometimes used pencil, but never red ink.

When the Memoirs were published in 1825, they were regarded as most shocking. The Duke figures prominently eight or nine times. Mrs Arbuthnot, a close friend of the Duke, asked him about her claim that he had been one of her lovers. He replied he had known her many years ago, that he "did not think he should remember her again", nor had he seen her since then, although he had frequently given her money.

Despite Wellington's apparent threat to go to court was not carried out. However, other of Stockdale's victims brought a series of libel actions against him which eventually ruined him.

Source: Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of the Sword (1969)

I remain, etc.
Jason E.