ed experience, how speedily and effectually Blucher could rally his Prussians, even after a severe defeat. He made it his choice, therefore, to turn his whole force against the English, leaving only Grouchy and Vandamme, with about twenty-five thousand men, to hang upon the rear of Blucher; and by pursuing his retreat from Sombref to Wavre, to occupy his attention, and prevent his attempting to take a share in the unexpected action with the British.

Napoleon probably expected to find the English army upon the ground which it had occupied during the 16th. But the movement of his own forces from St Amand and Ligny to Frasne, had occupied a space of time which was not lest unemployed by the Duke of Wellington. The retreat had already commenced, and the position at Quatre Bras was, about eleven in the forenoon, only occupied by a strong rear-guard, destined to protect the retrograde movement of the British. general. Bonaparte put his troops in motion to pursue his retiring enemy. The day was stormy and rainy in the extreme; and the roads, already broken up by the English artillery in their advance and retreat, were very nearly impassable. The cavalry, whose duty it became to press upon the rear of the English, were obliged to march through fields of standing corn, which being reduced to swamps by the wetness of the season, rendered rapid movement impossible. This state of the weather and roads was of no small advantage to the British army, who had to defile through the narrow streets of the village of Genappe, and over the bridge which there crosses a small river, in the very face of the pursuing enemy. Their cavalry once or twice attacked the rear-guard, but received so severe a check from the Life Guards and Oxford Blues, that they afterwards left the march undisturbed. I am assured, that the Duke of Wellington, in passing Genappe, expressed his surprise that he had been allowed to pass through that narrow defile, unharassed by attack and interruption, and asserted his belief, founded upon that circumstance, that Napoleon did not command in person the pursuing divisions of the French army. A French officer, to whom I mentioned this circumstance, accounted for this apparent want of activity, by alleging the heavy loss sustained upon the 16th, in the battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny; the necessary disorganization of the French cavalry after two such severe actions; the stormy state of the weather upon the 17th, and the impracticability of the roads for the movements of the cavalry. You, as a military critic, will be best judge how far this defence is available. I notice the same observation in an Account of the Battle of Waterloo, by a British Officer on the Staff.*

With little further interruption on the part of the enemy, the British

army retired upon the ever-memorable field of Waterloo, and there took up a position upon the road to Brussels, which I shall endeavour todescribe more fully in my next Letter. The Duke had caused a plan of this, and other military positions in the neighbourhood of Brussels, to be made some time before by Colonel Carmichael Smith, the chief engineer. He now called for that sketch, and, with the assistance of the regretted Sir William de Lancy and Colonel Smith, made his dispositions for the momentous events of next day. The plan itself, a relic so precious, was rendered yet more so, by being found in the breast of Sir William de Lancy's coat, when he fell, and stained with the blood of that gallant officer. It is now in the careful preservation of Colonel Carmichael Smith, by whom it was originally sketched.

When the Duke of Wellington had made his arrangements for the night, he established his headquarters at a petty inn in the small village of Waterloo, about a mile in the rear of the position. The army slept upon their arms upon the summit of a gentle declivity, chiefly covered with standing corn.

The French, whose forces were gradually coming up during the evening, occupied a ridge nearly opposite to the position of the English army. The villages in the rear of that rising ground were also filled with the soldiers of their numerous army. Bonaparte established his headquarters at Planchenoit, a small village in the rear of the position.

Thus arranged, both generals and their respective armies waited the arrival of morning, and the events it was to bring. The night, as if the elements meant to match their fury with that which was preparing for the morning, was stormy in the extreme, accompanied by furious gusts of wind, heavy bursts of rain, continued and vivid flashes of lightning, and the loudest thunder our officers had ever heard. Both armies had to sustain this tempest in the exposed situation of an open bivouac, without means either of protection or refreshment. But though these hardships were common to both armies, yet, (as was the case previous to the battle of Agincourt) the moral feelings of the English army were depressed below their ordinary tone, and those of the French exalled to a degree of confidence and presumption unusual even to the soldiers of that nation.

The British could not help reflecting, that the dear-bought success at Quatre Bras, while it had cost so many valuable lives, had produced, in appearance at least, no corresponding result: a toilsome advance and bloody action had been followed by a retreat equally laborious to the soldier; and the defeat of the Prussians, which was now rumoured with the usual allowance of exaggeration, had left Bonaparte at liberty to assail them separately, and with his whole force, excepting such small

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proportion as might be necessary to continue the pursuit of their defeated and dispirited allies. If to this it was added, that their ranks contained many thousand foreigners, on whose faith the British could not implicitly depend, it must be owned there was sufficient scope for melancholy reflections. To balance these, remained their confidence in their commander, their native undaunted courage, and a stern resolution to discharge their duty and leave the result to Providence.

The French, on the other hand, had forgotten, in their success at Ligny, their failure at Quatre Bras, or, if they remembered it, their miscarriage was ascribed to treachery; and it was said that Bourmont and other officers had been tried by a military commission and shot, for having, by their misconduct, occasioned the disaster. This rumour, which had no foundation but in the address with which Bonaparte could apply a salve to the wounded vanity of his soldiers, was joined to other exulting considerations. Admitting the partial success of Wellington, the English Duke, they said, commanded but the right wing of the Prussian army, and had, in fact, shared in Blucher's defeat, as he himself virtually acknowledged, by imitating his retreat. All, therefore, was glow and triumph. The Prussians were annihilated, the British defeated, "the Great Lord"* astounded. Such were literally the reports transmitted to Paris, and given to the French public. There is no reason in the present instance to suspect, that the writers of these gasconades were guilty of intentional exaggeration. No one supposed the English would halt, or make head, until they reached their vessels; no one doubted that the Belgian troops would join the Emperor in a mass; it would have been disaffection to have supposed there lay any impediment in their next morning's march to Brussels; and all affected chiefly to regret the tempestuous night, as it afforded to the despairing English the means of retiring unmolested. Bonaparte himself shared, or affected to share, these sentiments; and when the slow and gloomy morning of the 18th of June showed him his enemies, still in possession of the heights which they occupied over-night, and apparently determined to maintain them, he could not suppress his satisfaction, but, exclaimed, while he stretched his arm towards their position with a motion as if to grasp his prey, "Je les tiens donc, ces Anglais!"

The exultation of the French was mixed, according to their custom, with many a scurril jest at the expense of their enemies. The death of the Duke of Brunswick was the subject of much pleasantry among such of the French officers as sought to make their court to Jerome, the exking of Westphalia. To please this phantom monarch, they ridiculed the fatality which always, they said, placed these unlucky Dukes of Brunswick in concurrence with the conqueror of their states, and condemned them successively to perish as it were by his hand. The national dress of our poor Highlanders, whose bodies were found lying in the lines which they had occupied in the field of Quatre Bras, furnished more good jests than I care to record. But, as I heard a Frenchman just now observe, “Il rit bien, qui rit le dernier."

Before entering upon such particulars as I can collect of the battle of Waterloo, let me notice your criticism upon the affairs of the 16th. You say, first, that Bonaparte ought not to have attacked both the English and Prussian armies on the same day, and you call my attention to the argument detailed in Maréchal Ney's letter to Fouché. And, secondly, you are of opinion, that, having defeated the Prussians at Ligny, Napoleon should have pursued the routed army of Blucher with his whole cavalry at least, and rendered it impossible for him to rally sooner than under the walls of Maestricht. Such, you say, is the opinion of all military judges in our neighbourhood, by which I know you mean all our friends with blue coats and red collars, whether half-pay captains, ex-officers of volunteers, commanders of local militia, or deputy-lieutenants. "Never a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine," my dear Major; but in despite of this unanimous verdict againt the ex-Emperor, I will venture to move for a writ of error.

Upon the first count of the indictment, be pleased to reflect, that Bonaparte's game was at best a difficult one, and that he could embrace no course which was not exposed to many hazards. It is not the ultimate success, or miscarriage, of his plan, by which we ought to judge of its propriety, but the rational prospects which it held out before being carried into execution. Now be it remembered, that upon the 16th, Blucher's army was already concentrated at Ligny, while that of Lord Wellington was only moving up in detail to Quatre Bras. Maréchal Ney would scarcely have recommended to Napoleon to move straight towards Brussels by Quatre Bras and Genappe, leaving upon his right, and eventually in his rear, an army of 80,000 Prussians, expecting hourly to be joined by Bulow with 20,000 more, altogether disengaged and unoccupied. The consequence of such a movement must necessarily have been, that, menaced by the enemy's whole force, the Duke of Wellington might have relinquished thoughts of collecting his army in a post so much in advance as Quatre Bras; but a concentration upon Waterloo would have been the obvious alternative; and if the Emperor had advanced to that point and attacked the English without their receiving any assistance from the untouched army of the Prussians, we must suppose Blucher less active in behalf of his allies when at the head of an entire army, than he proved himself to be when commanding one which had sustained a recent defeat. Ina word, if lest unattacked, or masked only by a force inferior to their own, the Prussians were in a situation instantly to have become the assailants; and, therefore, it seems that Bonaparte acted wisely in sending, in the first instance, the greater part of his army against that body of his enemies which had already combined its forces, while he might reasonably hope, that the divisions under Ney's command could dispose of the British troops as they came up to the field of battle wearied and in detail. In fact, his scheme had, in its material points, complete success, for Napoleon did defeat the Prussians; and, by his success against them, compelled the English to retreat, and gained an opportunity of attacking them with his whole force in a battle, where the scale more than once inclined to his side. If, in the conjoined assault of the 16th, Ney failed in success over an enemy far inferior in numbers, it can only be accounted for by the superior talents of the English general, and the greater bravery of the soldiers whom he commanded. Something like a conscious feeling of this kind seems to lurk at the bottom of the maréchal's statement, who scarce pardons the emperor for being successful upon a day on which he was himself defeated.

The manner in which Ney complains of being deprived of the assistance of the first brigade, held hitherto in reserve, between his right and the left wing of Napoleon, and withdrawn, as he alleges, to the assistance of the latter just when, on his side, "victory was not doubtful," savours of the same peevish criticism. Napoleon sent for these troops when their aid appeared essential to carry the village of St Amand, and thereby to turn the right flank of the Prussians, and he restored them to their original position the instant he perceived a possibility of carrying his point without them. Surely more could not have been expected in the circumstances. Of the tone the maréchal assumes to his fallen master, and the reproaches which he permits himself to cast upon him, I will only say, in the words of Wolsey,

"Within these forty hours Surrey had better
Have burned his tongue than said so."

Upon the other point of censure it is more difficult to give a satisfactory explanation. The French seem to have considered the Battle of Ligny as being of a character less decisive than complete victory, and a consciousness of the unbroken force of the retiring enemy certainly checked the vivacity of the pursuit. The French carried the positions of the Prussians with great slaughter; but the precipitate retreat, and the numerous prisoners announced in Bonaparte's bulletin, are now universally allowed to be apocryphal. Blucher, whose open and frank avowal of the defeat he sustained claims credit for the rest of his narrative, (assures us, that the Prussian army was again formed within a quarter of a league from the field of battle, and presented such