the caricatures and satires against Napoleon have disappeared from the windows and stalls. The shops are all shut, the English families flying to Antwerp; and the proclamation of the Baron de Capellen[15] to the inhabitants, wherein he exhorts them to be tranquil and assures them that the Bureaux of Government have not yet quitted Bruxelles, only serves to increase the confusion and consternation. The inhabitants in general wish well to the arms of Napoleon, but they know that the retreat of the English Army must necessarily take place through their town; that our troops will perhaps endeavour to make a stand, and that the consequences will be terrible to the inhabitants, from the houses being liable to be burned or pillaged by friend or foe. All the baggage of our Army and all the military Bureaux have received orders to repair and are now on their march to Antwerp, and the road thither is so covered and blocked up by waggons that the retreat of our Army will be much impeded thereby. Probably my next letter may be dated from a French prison.
BRUXELLES, June 21.
Judge, my friend, of my astonishment and that of almost everybody in this city, at the news which was circulated here early on the morning of the 19th, and has been daily confirmed, viz., that the French Army had been completely defeated and was in full flight, leaving behind it 220 pieces of cannon and all its baggage, waggons and munitions de guerre. I have not been able to collect all the particulars, but you will no doubt hear enough of it, for I am sure it will be said or sung by all the partisans of the British ministry and all the Tories of the United Kingdom for months and years to come; for further details, therefore, I shall refer you to the Gazette. The following, however, you may consider as a tolerably fair précis of what took place. The attack began on the 18th about ten o'clock[16] and raged furiously along the whole line, but principally at Hougoumont, a large Métairie on the right of our position, which was occupied by our troops, and from which all the efforts of the enemy could not dislodge them. The slaughter was terrible in this quarter. From twelve o'clock till evening several desperate charges of cavalry and infantry were made on the rest of our line. Both sides fought with the utmost courage and obstinacy, and were prodigal of life in the extreme. But it is generally supposed that our army must have succumbed towards the evening had it not been for the arrival of Bulow's division of Prussians, followed closely by Blucher and the rest of the army, which had rallied with uncommon celerity. These moved on the right flank of the French, and decided the fortune of the day by a charge which was seconded by a general charge from the whole of the English line on the centre and left of the French. Seeing themselves thus turned, a panic, it is said, spread among the young Guard of the French army, and a cry of "Sauve qui peut! nous sommes trahis!" spread like wildfire. The flight became universal; the old Guard alone remained, refused quarter and perished like Leonidas and his Spartans. The Prussian cavalry being fresh pursued the enemy all night, l'épée dans les reins, and it may be conceived from their previous disposition that they would not be very merciful to the vanquished. Indeed, on the 15th, it is said that the French were not very merciful to them. It was like the combat of Achilles and Hector.
No thought but rage and never ceasing strife
Till death extinguish rage and thought and life.
France will now call out to Napoleon as Augustus did to Varus, "Give me back my legions!" The loss on both sides was very great, but it must have been prodigious on the side of the French. The whole Allied Army is in full pursuit. Several friends and acquaintances of mine perished in this battle, viz., Lieut.-General Sir T. Picton, Colonel Sir H. Ellis and Colonel Morice.
June 22.
This morning I went to visit the field of battle, which is a little beyond the village of Waterloo, on the plateau of Mont St. Jean; but on arrival there the sight was too horrible to behold. I felt sick in the stomach and was obliged to return. The multitude of carcases, the heaps of wounded men with mangled limbs unable to move, and perishing from not having their wounds dressed or from hunger, as the Allies were, of course, obliged to take their surgeons and waggons with them, formed a spectacle I shall never forget. The wounded, both of the Allies and the French, remain in an equally deplorable state.
At Hougoumont, where there is an orchard, every tree is pierced with bullets. The barns are all burned down, and in the court-yard it is said they have been obliged to burn upwards of a thousand carcases, an awful holocaust to the War-Demon.
As nothing is more distressing than the sight of human misery when we are unable to silence it, I returned as speedily as possible to Bruxelles with Cowper's lines in my head:
War is a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings should not play at.
I hope this battle will, at any rate, lead to a speedy peace.
June 28.
We have no other news from the Allied Army, except that they are moving forward with all possible celerity in the direction of Paris. You may form a guess of the slaughter and of the misery that the wounded must have suffered, and the many that must have perished from hunger and thirst, when I tell you that all the carriages in Bruxelles, even elegant private equipages, landaulets, barouches and berlines, have been put in requisition to remove the wounded men from the field of battle to the hospitals, and that they are yet far from being all brought in. The medical practitioners of the city have been put in requisition, and are ordered to make domiciliary visits at every house (for each habitation has three or four soldiers in it) in order to dress the wounds of the patients. The Bruxellois, the women in particular, have testified the utmost humanity towards the poor sufferers. It was suggested by some humane person that they who went to see the field of battle from motives of curiosity would do well to take with them bread, wine and other refreshments to distribute among the wounded, and most people did so. For my part I shall not go a second time. Napoleon, it is said, narrowly escaped being taken. His carriage fell into the hands of the Allies, and was escorted in triumph into Bruxelles by a detachment of dragoons. So confident was Napoleon of success that printed proclamations were found in the carriage dated from "Our Imperial Palace at Laecken," announcing his victory and the liberation of Belgium from the insatiable coalition, and wherein he calls on the Belgians to re-unite with their old companions in arms in order to reap the fruits of their victory. This was certainly rather premature, and reminds me of an anecdote of a Spanish officer at the siege of Gibraltar, related by Drinkwater in his narrative of that siege.[17] When the British garrison made a sortie, they carried the advanced Spanish lines and destroyed all their preparations; the Spanish officer on guard at the outermost post was killed, but on the table of his guard room was found his guard report filled up and signed, stating that "nothing extraordinary had happened since guard-mounting."
Mr. L. of Northumberland, having proposed to me to make a tour with him to Aix-la-Chapelle and the banks of the Rhine, I shall start with him in a day or two.
[1] Sir Wiltshire Wilson (1762–1842), Commander of the Royal Artillery in Ceylon, 1810–1815.—Ed.
[2] Pulci, Morgante, canto XVIII, ottava 114–115. The Giant Morgante meets the villain Margutte and asks him if he be a Christian or a Saracen. Margutte answers that he cares not, but only believes in boiled or in roasted capon:
Rispose allor Margutte: A dirtel tosto
Io non credo pio al nero ch'all' azzurro.
Ma nel cappone, o lesso, o vuogll arrosto. …
[3] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, iv, 63, f.—ED.
[4] A work of H, Verbruggen of Antwerp (1677).—ED.
[5] Lord Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury, caused this fountain to be erected in 1751, as a token of gratitude to the town of Bruxelles where he had lived in exile.—E.D.
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