ARTHUR WELLESLEY, 1ST DUKE OF WELLINGTON - Kouroo

ARTHUR WELLESLEY, 1ST DUKE OF WELLINGTON

“[The railroad will] only encourage the common peopleto move about needlessly.”

— Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdf

ARTHUR WELLESLEY DUKE OF WELLINGTON

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May 1, Monday: Birth of Arthur Wellesley, who would become the 1st Duke of Wellington, at 6 Merrion Street in Dublin, Ireland: that family had changed its name from the plebeian Wesley to the aristocratic Wellesley as they were on their way up the social scale, in becoming the “Earls of Mornington.” As he would later comment about his Irish origins, “Because a man is born in a stable, that does not make him a horse.” Hey, big guy, who do you suppose is the most famous white dude ever born in a stable with livestock — John Wayne? How about “If a dude is born in a manger, does it make him a messiah?” –Try that one on for size.

ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE,

IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH.

1769

Duke of Wellington “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdf


mailto:[email protected]?subject=Contribution to Kouroo Contexture

mailto:[email protected] subject=Contribution to Kouroo Contexture

mailto:[email protected]


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During this year Arthur Wellesley resigned in India.

ESSENCES ARE FUZZY, GENERIC, CONCEPTUAL;ARISTOTLE WAS RIGHT WHEN HE INSISTED THAT ALL TRUTH IS

SPECIFIC AND PARTICULAR (AND WRONG WHEN HE CHARACTERIZED TRUTH AS A GENERALIZATION).

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June 20, Thursday: Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley stopped by St. Helena aboard the Trident after his victory at Assaye, India. The conqueror commented favorably on the climate of the island. (This is a small island with few amenities: the Duke of Wellington occupied the same small pavilion in the garden of “The Briars,” home of the Balcombe family, that Napoléon Bonaparte would use until he relocated to “Longwood.”)

“HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE” BEING A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME (JUST AS THE PERSPECTIVE IN A PAINTING IS A VIEW

FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN SPACE), TO “LOOK AT THE COURSE OF HISTORY MORE GENERALLY” WOULD BE TO SACRIFICE PERSPECTIVE ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE.

ST. HELENA THE HISTORIC

“THE BRIARS” OF ST. HELENA





http://books.google.com/books?id=udXiTTcyxgMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=yYIfAAAAYAAJ&dq=recollections+of+the+emperor+napoleon&source=gbs_navlinks_s






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July 28, Friday: French forces attacked the British and Spanish at Talavera southwest of Madrid. After a furious seesaw battle the French would retreat toward the capital. Because of this victory, the British commander, Arthur Wellesley, would be ennobled as Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

6th day 28th of 7th Mo 1809// The mind most of the day in somewhat of an unfeeling state, tho’ I tried to feel after the best things -In the eveng from our window we had an opportunity to hear some very harmonious Singers perform several pieces of what is called sacred Music If I was ever attracted by musick it was then, but I do not consider that my organic System is so constructed as to be as much pleased with its sound as many others - while setting attentive to the sounds of their voices I endevor’d to turn my mind a little to examine what kind of sensations it was that it excited & came to the conclusion that it was the passionate part that was affected, & tho’ it occasioned Solemn & tender sensations, I could not find that I was affected with that devotion that I have felt many times when no human voice was heard, & silence was felt thro’ out the whole man - hence I conclude that if singing in that way is worship -there is a worship that far exceeds it

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YOUR GARDEN-VARIETY ACADEMIC HISTORIAN INVITES YOU TO CLIMB ABOARD A HOVERING TIME MACHINE TO SKIM IN METATIME BACK

ACROSS THE GEOLOGY OF OUR PAST TIMESLICES, WHILE OFFERING UP A GARDEN VARIETY OF COGENT ASSESSMENTS OF OUR PROGRESSION. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! YOU SHOULD REFUSE THIS HELICOPTERISH

OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL PAST, FOR IN THE REAL WORLD THINGS HAPPEN ONLY AS THEY HAPPEN. WHAT THIS SORT WRITES AMOUNTS,

LIKE MERE “SCIENCE FICTION,” MERELY TO “HISTORY FICTION”: IT’S NOT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION.

1809

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS









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August 12, Wednesday: British, Portuguese, and Spanish troops under Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington entered Madrid.

Amos Perry was born in South Natick, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard College with Henry Thoreau in 1837 (he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, which Thoreau was not) he would teach in New London, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island. He would visit Europe several times and would be from 1862 till 1867 the United States consul at Tunis. In 1873 he would become the secretary of the Rhode Island historical society and in 1880 its librarian, and in 1885 he would be made the superintendent of the state census. In 1841 Brown University would award him the degree of A.M. He would publish, in 1869, CARTILAGE AND TUNIS, in 1883, MEMORIAL OF ZACHARIAH ALLEN, 1795-1882, and in 1887, RHODE ISLAND STATE CENSUS, 1885.


4th day 8M 12 / Our little boy is but poorly at best, but I hope he will not be much worse. —This evening I went to Tennys meeting house & heard John Gloucester the man of colour mentioned yesterday preach & I thought he misaplied Scripture exceedingly, yet he appread to be a man of some ingenuity & readiness of utterance. —

THE TASK OF THE HISTORIAN IS TO CREATE HINDSIGHT WHILE INTERCEPTING ANY ILLUSION OF FORESIGHT. NOTHING A HUMAN CAN

SEE CAN EVER BE SEEN AS IF THROUGH THE EYE OF GOD.

September 22, Tuesday: A Kyrie in C by Antonio Salieri was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.

The Spanish cortes offered the post of commander in chief of its armed forces to Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington.


3rd day 22 of 9 M / Aunt Molly Wanton was this eveng taken ill with faintness & sickness of the stomach but got most renewed before bed time.

NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE SEPTEMBER 22D, 1812 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY,

1812












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TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST).

October 4, Sunday: In London a spendthrift 19-year-old heir to a baronetcy, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was just getting his bride Harriet Westbrook Shelley pregnant, met William Godwin, a liberally oriented man whose defenseless daughter Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft had just turned 15. Hot damn!

US forces defeated British forces at Ogdensburgh, New York after a British raid out of Prescott, Ontario had failed and their two gunboats had been forced to return.

The French garrison of the Spanish city of Burgos was besieged by British and Portuguese troops under Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington. The siege would fail when French forces would be relieved, but Wellington would capture the city during June 1813 shortly before the battle of Vitoria.


1st day 3 [sic] of 10 M / C R was concern’d in testimony in the


WILLIAM GODWIN’S LIFE




http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/godwin/friends/ch8v2.html





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forenoon & Afternoon Meetings — Visited the Work & Alms houses —

NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE OCTOBER 4TH, 1812 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY,

TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST).

June 18, Thursday: Franz Schubert begins instruction in counterpoint with Antonio Salieri in Vienna.

Unaware of course that Great Britain had already rescinded its offending actions two days before, President James Madison signed the joint congressional Declaration of War. This 2d war of the United States of America upon Great Britain, which would take place over a number of years, is now denominated in our history books the “War of 1812” (evidently we spare ourselves embarrassment when we do not give this war an accurate name).1 –Not that any of this makes any difference (only a fool would suppose that nations go to war for the reasons they proffer)!

Upstate New York was woefully unprepared. Fort Niagara had deteriorated during the decade after 1800 as its garrison had become increasingly smaller. Many of the old buildings, some of them dating to the French occupation, had disappeared. The walls on the land side remained in place, but there was never a large enough workforce to keep them in good condition. At the outbreak of hostilities the Americans could muster only 150 soldiers to man this strongpoint. However, the British preparedness was not much better. The Napoleonic Wars in Europe had been sucking up all of England’s attention, with Canada on the back burner at best, so there were in this year only a couple of thousand of British regular soldiers in all of what is today the province of Ontario. The United States Army although far larger was composed mostly newly organized units consisting of untrained recruits. The Americans were confident, but without justification. Some of the bloodiest fighting would occur along the Niagara River. Captain Nathaniel Leonard would do what he could to improve his defensive readiness, while the corresponding enemy commander likewise concentrated on organizing a defense. Much of the summer would be spent in preparation as units of the state militia were activated and moved toward the Niagara Frontier. In order to keep the regular army and the militia well separate and diminish friction, the militia camp was established at Lewiston, six miles away upriver.

At some point during this period of intermittent scattered hostilities, John Thoreau would become the commissary for2 Fort Independence on Castle Island in Boston Harbor. Thoreau would make a note of this in his journal in 1850:

After October 31, 1850: ... My father was commissary at Fort Independence in the last war.He says that the baker whom he engaged returned 18 ounces of bread for 16 of flour, and was glad of the jobon those terms. ...

1. Interestingly, the federal government of the USA stated that one of the reasons why it was declaring war on Britain was the British embargo on hemp. After the Brits had lost this one, the analysis made by the Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington would be that their forces had suffered from a lack of command discipline: “They wanted this iron fist to command them.”

2. This is what we would consider similar to “running the PX” at a smallish current military base.


CANNABIS

HENRY’SRELATIVES







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5th day 18 of 6th M 1812// Our Meeting was very large. Anne Greene was concern’d in supplication, then Micajah Collins in an acceptable testimony, then David Sands in a very extensive & powerful testimonyIn the last (Preparative) David had a few close remarks on the subject of Rainess [?]At 5 OClock a meeting was appointed for the people of colour, many attended but not all of them by a very considerable - D Sands was by far the greatet laborer amongst them, Anne Willis Hannah Dennis & James Hazard had small testimnies to bear. —

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“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

December 24, Thursday: Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym, having been separated from Anhalt-Bernburg in 1707, was rejoined to the Duchy.

Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington arrived in Cádiz to accept command of the Spanish armies from the cortes.


5th day 24 of 12 M / Second third & fourth days passed with the usual rounds -Our Meeting today was rather small & silent & to me a dull season tho’ I think there was not that hardness which I sometimes feel - In the last (Preparative) A certificate was requested for O Williams & family —This Afternoon in company with the others of the committee visited Sarah Stevens again & it proved a season of favor tho’ way does not open in her mind to make acknowledgement or request a longer continuance of the subject under the care of the Moy [Monthly] Meeting — When I first went my mind was under great leaness & Poverty for sometime but by keeping down & attending to the little & keeping close to the little life afforded, I found it to increase & I became sweetly tendered & had much more to offer than had any expectation of, & I believe the opportunity will not soon be forgotten - as we left her much tenderer in










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spirit

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT











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May 13, Thursday: British and Spanish forces under Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington began their final offensive in the “Peninsular War” to liberate Spain from its French overlords. Austria would join in the alliance against France.


5th day 13 of 5 M / Our Meeting was Silent & a season of some favor to me. — This Afternoon recd a very Acceptable letter from Micajah Collins of Lynn, which I answer’d this evening

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

June 21, Monday: British forces under Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington defeated a French force at Vitoria southeast of Bilbao, forcing them into a retreat in disarray over the Pyrenees. The battle would inspire Ludwig van Beethoven to compose the symphony “Wellington’s Victory.”

October 5, Tuesday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

3rd day 5 of 10 M / We have this Day removed from our very comfortable & agreeable accomodations in Spring Street owned by Jethro Briggs & occupied in the lower part by his son Wm & family -Into the house to which my Shop is attached where I have said before we shall be comfortable in some respects but not so much so on some others — We leave our dear Neighbors with much regret we had lived on such intimate terms with tham that they really

1813










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claim a great share of our affections. —

Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington resigned as commander in chief of the Spanish army.

In the “Battle of the Thames” or Moraviantown, east of Chatham in Ontario, United States forces under General William Henry Harrison, victor at the battle of Tippecanoe (Keth-tip-pe-can-nunk), Indiana, who had crossed the Detroit River in pursuit of British General Proctor, captured Ft. Malden south of Detroit at the entrance to Lake Erie.








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Shawnee headman Tecumseh was shot dead and General Procter fled.






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Here is the death of Tecumseh as it has been depicted in a Brumidi frieze on the rotunda of the US Congress:

The body was skinned and the white soldiers made nice forget-me-not strops for their straight razors (not depicted). A friend carried the bones off and, it seems, buried them on an island, but upon the death of this friend, the location of the burial was lost.3

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

October 7, Thursday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

5th day 7 of 10 M / This forenoon I calculated to go to Meeting till within a few minutes before the time when my Wood came which I thought would overlay my time so as to prevent - but I after wards found as I allmost uniformly have that I might have gone to meeting & nothing have differed by it. —

3. They must have been a little disappointed! Because, as Herodotus noted, death knowing not color, no matter what hue human skin is while it is adorning a living human being, when our skin has been cured and dried it uniformly becomes just another piece of whitish stuff.

THE MARKET FOR HUMAN BODY PARTS








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British, Portuguese, and Spanish forces led by Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington crossed the Bidassoa River from the Iberian Peninsula into France.4

4. Entering the French homeland like this was a really, really big deal — making a legitimate comparison of the French emperor with the German Führer, this must have felt something like our crossing of the Rhine River during WWII. So, did the Iron Duke piss in the Bidassoa the way General Patton would piss in the Rhine?

The Iron Duke pissing in the Bidassoa?

WORLD WAR II






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December 8, Wednesday: A benefit for wounded Austrian and Bavarian soldiers at the University of Vienna featured the initial performances of two works by Ludwig van Beethoven: the Symphony no.7, and Wellington’s Victory. The works created ecstatic applause and critical raves. The concert was so successful it would need to be repeated on December 12th. Wellingtons’s Victory was directed by Beethoven with the assistance of Ignaz Moscheles and Antonio Salieri. The violins included Louis Spohr, Ignaz Schuppanzigh, and Joseph Mayseder. Playing bass drum were Giacomo Meyerbeer and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Besides the works by Beethoven the concerts also included two marches, one by Jan Ladislav Dussek and the other by Ignace Joseph Pleyel — as performed by Mälzel’s Mechanical Trumpeter with orchestral accompaniment. A good time was had by all.

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

DUKE OF WELLINGTON





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Meyerbeer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Nepomuk_Hummel







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April 18, Monday: Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington and Marshal Soult signed an armistice covering southwestern France.


2nd day 18th of 4th M / This Afternoon Our beloved friends Micajah Coolins & his wife & Wm Brown & Abijah Chase arrived in town at father Rodmans - I went immediately up had their horses taken Care of & In the eveng My H & I went up but I was so afflicted with the tooth Ache that I left her there & at 9 OClock She return’d & brought Wm Brown & A Chase to lodge with us

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

August 1, Saturday: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Remorse” was performed in Bristol, England.

A great celebration in honor of Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington took place at Carleton House, hosted by the Prince Regent.

1814










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January 8, Sunday: On the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, the British army, unaware that a treaty of peace had been signed, made a 3d assault against General Andrew Jackson’s system of ditches around the sea approaches to New Orleans. Whoever won control over this port and river city supposed they would “win” the war that was already over, because the port was the key to all of the American Inland South facing the Caribbean, a general territory which went under the name “Louisiana,” that is, “Land of Louis XV, King of France,” although whatever paltry “rights of ownership” Louis XV had had to this real estate (which were debatable) had passed to his (erstwhile) heir the Emperor Napoléon subsequent to his having lost his head, and had then been sold to the national government of the United States of America in 1803 for the paltry sum of $0.04 per acre.5 However, Jackson had been reinforced with levies from Kentucky and the British troops were being led by a brother-in-law of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, Packenham, who had achieved his position of military mastery from political connections of rank and privilege rather than from any demonstrated facility in getting other men to die when he told them to. The watchword of the British was “Booty and Beauty.” The troops were chiefly drawn from Wellington’s peninsular army. This relative Packenham did a no-no. He led a manly frontal assault against a fully prepared and alerted defensive position under fine daylight conditions with no thought of surprise or other trickiness. The attackers were cut down in half an hour of concentrated rifle and cannon fire with losses of almost 2,000 dead and injured. Only one of their general officers was still alive. American casualties were 6 killed and 10 wounded (Jackson’s loss in the entire campaign was merely 333 souls). The British withdrew to their original landing-place and re-embarked.

This Battle of New Orleans, the last campaign of the War of 1812, was being fought subsequent to the signing of the Peace of Ghent on December 24, 1814. There is no merit, however, in the frequent assertion that Jackson’s great victory was won after the war was over, for the Ghent treaty specifically called for continued hostilities until ratification by both governments, and this mutual ratification would be effected only during February 1815. After so many distressing months of failure in a war in which the enemy had burned and sacked the federal capital and which had led disaffected citizens to question the value of the Union itself, Jackson’s victory at New Orleans would seem to wipe away the nation’s memories of incompetent leadership. Overnight, Old Hickory would be transfigured into a symbol of distinctive American strengths and virtues, and his path would turn inevitably toward the freshly painted because scorched “White House.” But for the moment the Virginia Dynasty still commanded, and Jackson would retire with his honors to his beloved Hermitage. Some admirers of Jackson would be able to obtain a locket of his hair, which hair, now tested, shows lead poisoning which would fully explain his severe abdominal cramping and constipation during this period. (The lead bullet lodged in his body produced chronic health problems such as irritability, paranoia, severe mood swings, and kidney failure, until it would be surgically removed in 1832 and the dissolved lead burden in his body would be able to decrease. The calomel which he took due to this constipation, since it contained mercury, may explain why his teeth would fall out at such an early age.)


1st day 8th of 1st M 1815 / Our Meetings were silent excepting a short offering in the forenoon — Went with Father Rodman to visit of our friend D Buffum who had for a week or two been confined by indisposition. took tea with him & set most of the

1815

5. When the national government of the United States of America purchased rights to such territories from weaker people, such as the Dakota nation, they weren’t in the habit of paying nearly as much as this per acre, even when the rights to the real estate were far more real than the rights of King Louis.







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evening. —

THE FALLACY OF MOMENTISM: THIS STARRY UNIVERSE DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SEQUENCE OF MOMENTS. THAT IS A FIGMENT, ONE WE

HAVE RECOURSE TO IN ORDER TO PRIVILEGE TIME OVER CHANGE, A PRIVILEGING THAT MAKES CHANGE SEEM UNREAL, DERIVATIVE, A

MERE APPEARANCE. IN FACT IT IS CHANGE AND ONLY CHANGE WHICH WE EXPERIENCE AS REALITY, TIME BEING BY WAY OF RADICAL

CONTRAST UNEXPERIENCED — A MERE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCT. THERE EXISTS NO SUCH THING AS A MOMENT. NO “INSTANT” HAS

EVER FOR AN INSTANT EXISTED.

January 7, Saturday: At the Congress of Vienna, France was admitted as an equal member to the directing Council of Four (Austria/Great Britain/Prussia/Russia).

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington was ordered to abandon his post as Ambassador-plenipotentiary to France in the capital city of Paris and –Castlereagh the chief British envoy being needed at home to manage relations with the House of Commons– hie himself to the Congress of Vienna.


7th day 7th of 1st M / Here ends the first week of the Year —It may be memorable in my mind — It has been a season of life & love


Duke of Wellington “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” ProjectRELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS








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January 11, Wednesday: As the wounded still lay dying, rumors began to reach the armed forces in and around New Orleans that the war had been over for some time, that a treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States of America had been signed at Ghent on the previous Christmas Eve. “There never was a more complete failure,” said his brother-in-law Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington matter-of-factly as the remaining British marines were shipping their commander’s riddled body home to his wife at Pakenham Castle in County Westmeath in England pickled in a hogshead of naval-supplies-grade rum.

February 1, Wednesday: The Duke of Wellington arrived at the Congress of Vienna as the British representative, replacing Viscount Castlereagh.


4th day 1st of 2nd M 1815 / The cold abates a little more Ice made in the harbor [too faint] night than I ever before saw [five line nearly illegible, but all having to do with the extreme cold]

BETWEEN ANY TWO MOMENTS ARE AN INFINITE NUMBER OF MOMENTS, AND BETWEEN THESE OTHER MOMENTS LIKEWISE AN INFINITE NUMBER, THERE BEING NO ATOMIC MOMENT JUST AS THERE IS NO ATOMIC POINT ALONG A LINE. MOMENTS ARE THEREFORE FIGMENTS. THE PRESENT MOMENT IS A MOMENT AND AS SUCH IS A FIGMENT, A FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION TO WHICH NOTHING REAL CORRESPONDS. SINCE PAST MOMENTS HAVE PASSED OUT OF EXISTENCE AND FUTURE MOMENTS HAVE YET TO ARRIVE, WE NOTE THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL

THAT EVER EXISTS — AND YET THE PRESENT MOMENT BEING A MOMENT IS A FIGMENT TO WHICH NOTHING IN REALITY CORRESPONDS.

February 2, Thursday: Representatives of 32 teeny German states unrecognized at the Congress of Vienna demanded an immediate congress of Germany to consider a constitution, a congress that would never happen.

The Duke of Wellington made his initial public appearance in Vienna, at a ball in the Redoutensaal. Everyone was fascinated and, as you might imagine, there was quite a large crush.


5th day 2nd of 2nd M 1815 / Attended Meeting & tho’ my spirit was barran when going, it proved a season of feeling & close exercise, expecially in commemorating what passed at our last Moy [Monthly] Meeting. -It seemed to open fully & satisfactorily











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to my mind that the body must witness an execise for itself, or






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it will long remain barran & unfruitful - true it is, that individuals compose the body & individuals must & will be exercised, but their hands will be tied from useful labor untill we can experience a more general concern, untill the body is more fully bound to promote labor for its own help & restoration, & it was my sense then & remains so now, that could the Moy [Monthly] Meeting be united in appointing a judicious committee one that would be willing to be exercised in the cause of Truth, who might have liberty to visit individuals, families & Meetings at their discretion much benefit might be the result - & not only such as are deliquents require help, but many who are endeavoring to fill their ranks in righteousness may need the friendly & pious call of their brethren & sisters, who may be enabled thro’ divine help to afford them suitable council & thereby strengthen their hands in well doing. —

March 29, Wednesday: Jane Austen put the finishing touches on the final chapters of EMMA.

The Byrons settled at 13 Piccadilly Terrace, in a house leased from Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire.6

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington departed from Vienna to take command of his army in the Netherlands.

Napoléon Bonaparte, as part of his “Hundred Days” decreed “À dater de la publication du présent Décret, la Traite des Noirs est abolie” and French participation in the international slave trade came to an end (BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1815-16, page 196, note; 1817-18, page 1025).7

W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: At the beginning of the nineteenthcentury England held 800,000 slaves in her colonies; France,250,000; Denmark, 27,000; Spain and Portugal, 600,000; Holland,50,000; Sweden, 600; there were also about 2,000,000 slaves inBrazil, and about 900,000 in the United States.8 This was thepowerful basis of the demand for the slave-trade; and againstthe economic forces which these four and a half millions ofenforced laborers represented, the battle for freedom had to befought.

6. “Do Men Ever Visit Boston?” is a mnemonic indicating the sequence of precedence of the British titles of nobility:D = Dukes and/or Duchesses addressed as “Your Grace”M = Marquesses and/or Marchionesses addressed as “My Lord” and as “Madam”E = Earls and/or CountessesV = Viscounts and/or ViscountessesB = Barons and/or Baronesses

7. This decree would be re-enacted in 1818 by the Bourbon dynasty.8. Cf. Augustine Cochin, in Lalor, CYCLOPEDIA, III. 723.








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Denmark first responded to the denunciatory cries of theeighteenth century against slavery and the slave-trade. In 1792,by royal order, this traffic was prohibited in the Danishpossessions after 1802. The principles of the French Revolutionlogically called for the extinction of the slave system byFrance. This was, however, accomplished more precipitately thanthe Convention anticipated; and in a whirl of enthusiasmengendered by the appearance of the Dominican deputies, slaveryand the slave-trade were abolished in all French coloniesFebruary 4, 1794.9 This abolition was short-lived; for at thecommand of the First Consul slavery and the slave-trade wasrestored in An X (1799).10 The trade was finally abolished byNapoleon during the Hundred Days by a decree, March 29, 1815,which briefly declared: “À dater de la publication du présentDécret, la Traite des Noirs est abolie.”11 The Treaty of Pariseventually confirmed this law.12

In England, the united efforts of Sharpe, Clarkson, andWilberforce early began to arouse public opinion by means ofagitation and pamphlet literature. May 21, 1788, Sir WilliamDolben moved a bill regulating the trade, which passed in Julyand was the last English measure countenancing the traffic.13

The report of the Privy Council on the subject in 178914

precipitated the long struggle. On motion of Pitt, in 1788, theHouse had resolved to take up at the next session the questionof the abolition of the trade.15 It was, accordingly, called upby Wilberforce, and a remarkable parliamentary battle ensued,which lasted continuously until 1805. The Grenville-Fox ministrynow espoused the cause. This ministry first prohibited the tradewith such colonies as England had acquired by conquest duringthe Napoleonic wars; then, in 1806, they prohibited the foreignslave-trade; and finally, March 25, 1807, enacted the totalabolition of the traffic.16

FIGURING OUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A “HISTORICAL CONTEXT” IS WHAT THE CRAFT OF HISTORICIZING AMOUNTS TO, AND THIS NECESSITATES

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE SET OF EVENTS THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE BEFORE EVENT E COULD BECOME POSSIBLE, AND MOST

CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHING THEM FROM ANOTHER SET OF EVENTS 9. By a law of Aug. 11, 1792, the encouragement formerly given to the trade was stopped. Cf. CHOIX DE RAPPORTS, OPINIONS ET DISCOURS PRONONCÉS À LA TRIBUNE NATIONALE DEPUIS 1789 (Paris, 1821), XIV. 425; quoted in Cochin, THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION (Booth’s translation, 1863), pages 33, 35-8.10. Cochin, THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION (Booth’s translation, 1863), pages 42-7.11. BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1815-6, page 196.12. BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1815-6, pages 195-9, 292-3; 1816-7, page 755. It was eventually confirmed by royal ordinance, and the law of April 15, 1818.13. STATUTE 28 GEORGE III., ch. 54. Cf. STATUTE 29 GEORGE III., ch. 66.14. Various petitions had come in praying for an abolition of the slave-trade; and by an order in Council, Feb. 11, 1788, a committee of the Privy Council was ordered to take evidence on the subject. This committee presented an elaborate report in 1739. See published REPORT, London, 1789.15. For the history of the Parliamentary struggle, cf. Clarkson’s and Copley’s histories. The movement was checked in the House of Commons in 1789, 1790, and 1791. In 1792 the House of Commons resolved to abolish the trade in 1796. The Lords postponed the matter to take evidence. A bill to prohibit the foreign slave-trade was lost in 1793, passed the next session, and was lost in the House of Lords. In 1795, 1796, 1798, and 1799 repeated attempts to abolish the trade were defeated. The matter then rested until 1804, when the battle was renewed with more success.16. STATUTE 46 GEORGE III., ch. 52, 119; 47 GEORGE III., sess. I. ch. 36.






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THAT COULD NOT POSSIBLY OCCUR UNTIL SUBSEQUENT TO EVENT E.

April 4, Tuesday: The Duke of Wellington reached Brussels from Vienna to take command of the army.

April 11, Tuesday: Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington arrived in Brussels from the Congress of Vienna to organize the defense of Europe against the international outlaw Napoléon Bonaparte.


3rd day 11th of 4th M 1815 / Rode to Rich Mitchells this morning to Meet the committee in case of D Chase Jr Staid there till dinner, & had the disagreeable feelings which the absense of four of the committee occasioned & returned home - found the absense of D W & his wife was occasioned by a misunderstanding A R was indisposed

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT











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June 18, Sunday: Carl Maria von Weber arrived in München.

Into an area of just less than three square miles of fields near the village of Waterloo in northern Europe, various commanders crammed 140,000 men and 30,000 horses — and then instructed the men to kill each other.

They killed each other from 11:25AM until it was too dark and they were too tired to kill each other any more.

When the situation had become hopeless for the French forces, the English called on the commander of Napoleon’s famous Imperial Guard to surrender the forces still under his command. He responded “Merde.”

Bonaparte himself had decided there was no point in sticking around after 8:30PM but the slaughter continued






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until at least 10:00PM, with at least 47,000 of the men dead or so badly wounded as not to be able to continue killing each other.17

That is to say, in more conventional language, that Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington and Blücher defeated the Emperor Napoléon at Waterloo (actually, of course, these gentlemen themselves did no fighting on that

17. An entire generation of Europeans would be able to wear what they would refer to as “Waterloo teeth,” yanked from the gaping mouths of the corpses of fallen young men.

(The horses also provided their teeth, and the Duke of York would have a corridor of Oaklands, his home in Surrey, lined with the teeth of horses killed during this battle. I haven’t been able to obtain any statistics on how many of the horses killed each other; however, the presence of the horses was not exactly what you could call innocent, as their usefulness in war had driven up the price of horse fodder to ridiculous levels and for years had been interfering with the ability of ordinary people to move around in the world. With the warfare on the continent over, the price of fodder would plummet, and suddenly tramlines drawn by giant Shire horses would again become able to compete economically against the barges on canals.)

THE MARKET FOR HUMAN BODY PARTS




Creasy, Sir Edward. _The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World From Marathon to Waterloo_. London: Macmillan & Company, 1851



artist

Sticky Note

Marked set by artist


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day). A boot termed the “Wellington” would become popular, named after the British general at Waterloo.

It was lighter than the “Blüchers” that had been worn by some since the turn of the century but that had become quite popular in the previous year when this Prussian general had visited London. The Wellington boot was made of soft, thin calfskin and fitted close to the leg as far as the knee so that it could be worn under long trousers that were fastened with a strap under the sole of the boot. But, whichever boot you prefer, these two generals had booted Napoleon right out of Europe.

“Thou first and last of fields, king-making victory!”—George Gordon, Lord Byron.

“[A nation is] a group of people united by a mistakenview about the past and a hatred of their neighbors.” — E. Renan, QU’EST-CE QU’UNE NATION?

March 11, 1882






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“Brilliant generalship in itself is a frightening thing— the very idea that the thought processes of a singlebrain of a Hannibal or a Scipio can play themselves outin the destruction of thousands of young men in anafternoon.”

— Victor Davis Hanson, CARNAGE AND CULTURE:LANDMARK BATTLES IN THE RISE OF WESTERN POWER(NY: Doubleday, 2001)






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England has now been blest with thirty-seven years of peace.At no other period of her history can a similarly long cessationfrom a state of warfare be found. It is true that our troopshave had battles to fight during this interval for theprotection and extension of our Indian possessions and ourcolonies; but these have been with distant and unimportantenemies. The danger has never been brought near our own shores,and no matter of vital importance to our empire has ever beenat stake. We have not had hostilities with either France,America, or Russia; and when not at war with any of our peers,we feel ourselves to be substantially at peace. There has,indeed, throughout this long period, been no great war, likethose with which the previous history of Modern Europe abounds.There have been formidable collisions between particular states;and there have been still more formidable collisions between thearmed champions of the conflicting principles of absolutism anddemocracy; but there has been no general war, like those of theFrench Revolution, like the American, or the Seven Years’ War,or like the War of the Spanish Succession. It would be far toomuch to augur from this, that no similar wars will again convulsethe world; but the value of the period of peace which Europe hasgained, is incalculable; even if we look on it as only a truce,and expect again to see the nations of the earth recur to whatsome philosophers have termed man’s natural state of warfare.No equal number of years can be found, during which science,commerce, and civilization have advanced so rapidly and soextensively, as has been the case since 1815. When we trace theirprogress, especially in this country, it is impossible not tofeel that their wondrous development has been mainly due to theland having been at peace. Their good effects cannot beobliterated, even if a series of wars were to recommence. Whenwe reflect on this, and contrast these thirty-seven years withthe period that preceded them, a period of violence, of tumult,of unrestingly destructive energy,—a period throughout which thewealth of nations was scattered like sand, and the blood ofnations lavished like water,—it is impossible not to look withdeep interest on the final crisis of that dark and dreadfulepoch; the crisis out of which our own happier cycle of yearshas been evolved. The great battle which ended the twenty-threeyears’ war of the first French Revolution, and which quelled theman whose genius and ambition had so long disturbed anddesolated the world, deserves to be regarded by us, not onlywith peculiar pride, as one of our greatest national victories,but with peculiar gratitude for the repose which it secured forus, and for the greater part of the human race.One good test for determining the importance of Waterloo, is toascertain what was felt by wise and prudent statesmen beforethat battle, respecting the return of Napoleon from Elba to theImperial throne of France, and the probable effects of hissuccess. For this purpose, I will quote the words, not of anyof our vehement anti-Gallican politicians of the school of Pitt,but of a leader of our Liberal party, of a man whose reputationas a jurist, a historian, and a far-sighted and candidstatesman, was, and is, deservedly high, not only in thiscountry, but throughout Europe. Sir James Mackintosh, in thedebate in the British House of Commons, on the 20th April, 1815,spoke thus of the return from Elba:







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“Was it in the power of language to describe the evil? Wars whichhad raged for more than twenty years throughout Europe; whichhad spread blood and desolation from Cadiz to Moscow, and fromNaples to Copenhagen; which had wasted the means of humanenjoyment, and destroyed the instruments of social improvement;which threatened to diffuse among the European nations, thedissolute and ferocious habits of a predatory soldiery, — atlength, by one of those vicissitudes which bid defiance to theforesight of man, had been brought to a close, upon the whole,happy beyond all reasonable expectation, with no violent shockto national independence, with some tolerable compromise betweenthe opinions of the age and reverence due to ancientinstitutions; with no too signal or mortifying triumph over thelegitimate interests or avowable feelings of any numerous bodyof men, and, above all, without those retaliations againstnations or parties, which beget new convulsions, often ashorrible as those which they close, and perpetuate revenge andhatred and bloodshed, from age to age. Europe seemed to breatheafter her sufferings. In the midst of this fair prospect, andof these consolatory hopes, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped fromElba; three small vessels reached the coast of Provence; ourhopes are instantly dispelled; the work of our toil andfortitude is undone; the blood of Europe is spilt in vain —

“‘Ibi omnis effusus labor!’”

The Congress of Emperors, Kings, Princes, Generals, andStatesmen, who had assembled at Vienna to remodel the worldafter the overthrow of the mighty conqueror, and who thought







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that Napoleon had passed away for ever from the great drama ofEuropean politics, had not yet completed their triumphantfestivities, and their diplomatic toils, when Talleyrand, on the1lth of March, 1815, rose up among them, and announced that theex-emperor had escaped front Elba, and was Emperor of Franceonce more. It is recorded by Sir Walter Scott, as a curiousphysiological fact, that, the first effect of the news of anevent which threatened to neutralize all their labors, was toexcite a loud burst of laughter from nearly every member of theCongress. But the jest was a bitter one: and they soon weredeeply busied in anxious deliberations respecting the mode inwhich they should encounter their arch-enemy, who had thusstarted from torpor and obscurity into renovated splendor andstrength:

“Qualis ubi in lucem coluber mala gramina pastus,Frigida sub terra, tumidum quem bruma tegebat.Nune positis novus exuviis nitidusque juventa,Lubrica convolvit sublato pectore tergaArduus ad solem, et linguis micat ore trisulcis.”

— Virgil, Aen.

Napoleon sought to disunite the formidable confederacy, whichhe knew would be arrayed against him, by endeavoring tonegotiate separately with each of the allied sovereigns. It issaid that Austria and Russia were at first not unwilling to treatwith him. Disputes and jealousies had been rife among severalof the Allies on the subject of the division of the conqueredcountries; and the cordial unanimity with which they had actedduring 1813 and the first months of 1814, had grown chill, duringsome weeks of discussions. But the active exertions ofTalleyrand, who represented Louis XVIII at the Congress, and whoboth hated and feared Napoleon with all the intensity of whichhis powerful spirit was capable, prevented the secession of anymember of the Congress from the new great league against theirancient enemy. Still it is highly probably that? if Napoleon hadtriumphed in Belgium over the Prussians and the English, hewould have succeeded in opening negotiations with the Austriansand Russians; and he might have thus gained advantages similarto those which he had obtained on his return from Egypt, whenhe induced the Czar Paul to withdraw the Russian armies fromcooperating with the other enemies of France in the extremityof peril to which she seemed reduced in 1799. But fortune nowhad deserted him both in diplomacy and in war.On the 13th of March, 1815, the Ministers of the seven powers,Austria, Spain, England, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden,signed a manifesto, by which they declared Napoleon an outlaw;and this denunciation was instantly followed up by a treatybetween England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia (to which otherpowers soon acceded), by which the rulers of those countriesbound themselves to enforce that decree, and to prosecute thewar until Napoleon should be driven from the throne of France,and rendered incapable of disturbing the peace of Europe. TheDuke of Wellington was the representative of England at theCongress of Vienna, and he was immediately applied to for hisadvice on the plan of military operations against France. It wasobvious that Belgium would be the first battlefield; and by thegeneral wish of the Allies, the English Duke proceeded thitherto assemble an army from the contingents of Dutch, Belgian, and







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Hanoverian troops, that were most speedily available, and fromthe English regiments which his own Government was hastening tosend over from this country. A strong Prussian corps was nearAix-la-Chapelle, having remained there since the campaign of thepreceding year. This was largely reinforced by other troops ofthe same nation; and Marshal Blucher, the favorite hero of thePrussian soldiery, and the deadliest foe of France, assumed thecommand of this army, which was the Lower Rhine; and which, inconjunction with Wellington’s forces, was to make the van of thearmaments of the Allied Powers. Meanwhile Prince Swartzenburgwas to collect 130,000 Austrians, and 124,000 troops of otherGermanic States, as “the Army of the Upper Rhine;” and 168,000Russians, under the command of Barclay de Tolly, were to form“the army of the Middle Rhine,” and to repeat the march fromMuscovy to that river’s banks.The exertions which the Allied Powers thus made at this crisisto grapple promptly with the French emperor have truly beentermed gigantic; and never were Napoleon’s genius and activitymore signally displayed, than in the celerity and skill by whichhe brought forward all the military resources of France, whichthe reverses of the three preceding years, and the pacificpolicy of the Bourbons during the months of their firstrestoration, had greatly diminished and disorganized. He re-entered Paris on the 20th of March, and by the end of May,besides sending a force into La Vendee to put down the aimedrisings of the royalists in that province, and besides providingtroops under Massena and Suchet for the defense of the southernfrontiers of France, Napoleon had an army assembled in thenortheast for active operations under his own command, whichamounted to between one hundred and twenty, and one hundred andthirty thousand men, with a superb park of artillery and in thehighest possible state of equipment, discipline, and efficiency. The approach of the multitudinous Russian, Austrian, Bavarian,and other foes of the French Emperor to the Rhine was necessarilyslow; but the two most active of the allied powers had occupiedBelgium with their troops, while Napoleon was organizing hisforces. Marshal Blucher was there with one hundred and sixteenthousand Prussians; and, before the end of May, the Duke ofWellington was there also with about one hundred and sixthousand troops, either British or in British pay. [Wellingtonhad but a small part of his old. Peninsular army in Belgium. Theflower of it, had been sent on the expeditions against America.His troops in 1815, were chiefly second battalions, or regimentslately filled up with new recruits.] Napoleon determined toattack these enemies in Belgium. The disparity of numbers wasindeed great, but delay was sure to increase the proportionatenumerical superiority of his enemies over his own ranks. TheFrench Emperor considered also that “the enemy’s troops were nowcantoned under the command of two generals, and composed ofnations differing both in interest and in feelings.” His ownarmy was under his own sole command. It was composed exclusivelyof French soldiers, mostly of veterans, well acquainted withtheir officers and with each other, and full of enthusiasticconfidence in their commander. If he could separate thePrussians from the British, so as to attack each singly, he feltsanguine of success, not only against these the most resoluteof his many adversaries, but also against the other masses, thatwere slowly laboring up against his eastern dominions.






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The triple chain of strong fortresses, which the Frenchpossessed on the Belgian frontier, formed a curtain, behindwhich Napoleon was able to concentrate his army, and to conceal,till the very last moment, the precise line of attack which heintended to take. On the other hand, Blucher and Wellington wereobliged to canton their troops along a line of open country ofconsiderable length, so as to watch for the outbreak of Napoleonfrom whichever point. of his chain of strongholds he shouldplease to make it. Blucher, with his army, occupied the banksof the Sambre and the Meuse, from Liege on his left, to Charleroion his right; and the Duke of Wellington covered Brussels; hiscantonments being partly in front of that city and between itand the French frontier, and partly on its west; their extremeright reaching to Courtray and Tournay, while the leftapproached Charleroi and communicated with the Prussian right.It was upon Charleroi that Napoleon resolved to level hisattack, in hopes of severing the two allied armies from eachother, and then pursuing his favorite tactic of assailing eachseparately with a superior force on the battle-field, though theaggregate of their numbers considerably exceeded his own.The first French corps d’armee, commanded by Count d’Erlon, wasstationed in the beginning of June in and around the city ofLille, near to the north-eastern frontier of France. The secondcorps, under Count Reille, was at Valenciennes, to the right ofthe first one. The third corps, under Count Vandamme, was atMezieres. The fourth, under Count Gerard, had its head-quartersat Metz. The fifth corps was under Count Rappat Strasburg, andthe sixth, under Count Lobau, was at Laon. Four corps of reservecavalry, under Marshal Grouchy were also near the frontier,between the rivers Aisne and Sambre. The Imperial Guard remainedin Paris until the 8th of June, when it marched towards Belgium,and reached Avesnes on the 13th; and in the course of the sameand the following day, the five corps d’armee with the cavalryreserves which have been mentioned, were, in pursuance ofskillfully combined orders, rapidly drawn together, andconcentrated in and around the same place, on the right bank ofthe river Sambre. On the 14th Napoleon arrived among his troops,who were exulting at the display of their commander’s skill inthe celerity and precision with which they had been drawntogether, and in the consciousness of their collective strength.Although Napoleon too often permitted himself to use languageunworthy of his own character respecting his great Englishadversary, his real feelings in commencing this campaign may bejudged from the last words which he spoke, as he threw himselfinto his traveling carriage to leave Paris for the army. “I go,”he said, “to measure myself with Wellington.”The enthusiasm of the French soldiers at seeing their Emperoramong them, was still more excited by the “Order of the day,”in which he thus appealed to them:







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“Napoleon, by the Grace of God, and the Constitution ofthe Empire, Emperor of the French, &c., to the GrandArmy.

“AT THE: IMPERIAL HEAD-QUARTERS.“Avesnes June 14th, 1815.“Soldiers! this day is the anniversary of Marengo andof Friedland, which twice decided the destiny of Europe.Then. as after Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we were toogenerous! we believed in the protestations and in theoaths of princes, whom we left on their thrones. Now,however, leagued together, they aim at the independenceand the most sacred rights of France. They havecommenced the most unjust of aggressions. Let us, then,march to meet them. Are they and we no longer the samemen?“Soldiers! at Jena, against these same Prussians, nowso arrogant, you were one to three, and at Montmirailone to six!“Let those among you who have been captives to theEnglish, describe the nature of their prison-ships, andthe frightful miseries they endured.“The Saxons, the Belgians, the Hanoverians, thesoldiers of the Confederation of the Rhine, lament thatthey are compelled to use their arms in the cause ofprinces, the enemies of justice and of the rights of all







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nations. They know that this coalition is insatiable!After having devoured twelve millions of Poles, twelvemillions of Italians, one million of Saxons, and sixmillions of Belgians, it now wishes to devour the statesof the second rank in Germany.“Madmen! one moment of prosperity has bewildered them.The oppression and the humiliation of the French peopleare beyond their power. If they enter France they willthere find their grave.“Soldiers! we have forced marches to make, battles tofight, dangers to encounter; but, with firmness,victory will be ours. The rights, the honor. and thehappiness of the country will be recovered!“To every Frenchman who has a heart, the moment is nowarrived to conquer or to die!“NAPOLEON.”“THE MARSHAL DUKE OF DALMATIA, Major General.”

The 15th of June had scarcely dawned before the French army wasin motion for the decisive campaign, and crossed the frontierin three columns, which were pointed upon Charleroi and itsvicinity. The French line of advance upon Brussels, which cityNapoleon resolved to occupy, thus lay right through the centerof the cantonments of the Allies.Much criticism has been expended on the supposed surprise ofWellington’s army in its cantonments by Napoleon’s rapidadvance. These comments would hardly have been made ifsufficient attention had been paid to the geography of theWaterloo campaign; and if it had been remembered that theprotection of Brussels was justly considered by the alliedgenerals a matter of primary importance, If Napoleon could,either by maneuvering or fighting, have succeeded in occupyingthat city, the greater part of Belgium would unquestionably havedeclared in his favor; and the results of such a success, gainedby the Emperor at the commencement of the campaign, might havedecisively influenced the whole after-current of events. Aglance at the map will show the numerous roads that lead fromthe different fortresses on the French north-eastern frontier,and converge upon Brussels; any one of which Napoleon might havechosen for the advance of a strong force upon that city. TheDuke’s army was judiciously arranged, so as to enable him toconcentrate troops on any one of these roads sufficiently inadvance of Brussels to check an assailing enemy. The army waskept thus available for movement in any necessary direction,till certain intelligence arrived on the 15th of June that theFrench had crossed the frontier in large force near Thuin, thatthey had driven back the Prussian advanced troops under GeneralZiethen, and were also moving across the Sambre upon Charleroi.Marshal Blucher now rapidly concentrated his forces, callingthem in from the left upon Ligny, which is to the north-east ofCharleroi. Wellington also drew his troops together, callingthem in from the right. But even now, though it was certain thatthe French were in large force at Charleroi, it was unsafe forthe English general to place his army directly between thatplace and Brussels, until it was certain that no corps of theenemy was marching upon Brussels by the western road throughMons and Hal. The Duke, therefore, collected his troops inBrussels and its immediate vicinity, ready to move due southwardupon Quatre Bras, and cooperate with Blucher, who was taking his







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station at Ligny: but also ready to meet and defeat any maneuver,that the enemy might make to turn the right of the Allies, andoccupy Brussels by a flanking movement. The testimony of thePrussian general, Baron Muffling, who was attached to the Duke’sstaff during the campaign, and who expressly states the reasonson which the English general acted, ought for ever to havesilenced the “weak Inventions of the enemy” about the Duke ofWellington having been deceived and surprised by his assailant,which some writers of our own nation, as well as foreigners,have incautiously repeated.It was about three o’clock in the afternoon of the 15th, that aPrussian officer reached Brussels, whom General Ziethen had sentto Muffling to inform him of the advance of the main French armyupon Charleroi. Muffling immediately communicated this to theDuke of Wellington; and asked him whether he would concentratehis army, and what would be his point of concentration;observing that Marshal Blucher in consequence of thisintelligence would certainly concentrate the Prussians at Ligny.The Duke replied, — “If all is as General Ziethen supposes, Iwill concentrate on my left wing, and so be in readiness to fightin conjunction with the Prussian army. Should, however, aportion of the enemy’s force come by Mons, I must concentratemore towards my center. This is the reason why I must wait forpositive news from Mons before I fix the rendezvous. Sincehowever it is certain that the troops must march, though it isuncertain upon what precise spot they must march, I will orderall to be in readiness, and will direct a brigade to move atonce towards Quatre Bras.”Later in the same day a message from Blucher himself wasdelivered to Muffling, in which the Prussian Field Marshalinformed the Baron that he was concentrating his men at Sombrefand Ligny, and charged Muffling to give him speedy intelligencerespecting the concentration of Wellington. Mufflingimmediately communicated this to the Duke, who expressed hissatisfaction with Blucher’s arrangements, but added that hecould not even then resolve upon his own point of concentrationbefore he obtained the desired intelligence from Mons. Aboutmidnight this information arrived. The Duke went to the quartersof General Muffling, and told him that he now had received hisreports from Mons, and was sure that no French troops wereadvancing by that route, but that the mass of the enemy’s forcewas decidedly directed on Charleroi. He informed the Prussiangeneral that he had ordered the British troops to move forwardupon Quatre Bras; but with characteristic coolness and sagacityresolved not to give the appearance of alarm by hurrying on withthem himselfA ball was to be given by the Duchess of Richmond at Brusselsthat night, and the Duke proposed to General Muffling that theyshould go to the ball for a. few hours, and ride forward in themorning to overtake the troops at Quatre Bras.To hundreds, who were assembled at that memorable ball, the newsthat the enemy was advancing, and that the time for battle hadcome, must have been a fearfully exciting surprise, and themagnificent stanzas of Byron are as true as they are beautiful.

There was a sound of revelry by night,And Belgium’s capital had gather’d thenHer Beauty and her Chivalry, and brightThe lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;






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A thousand hearts beat happily; and whenMusic arose with its voluptuous swell,Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again,And all went merry as a marriage-bell;But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell.Did ye not hear it — No; ’twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet -But, hark — that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat;And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!Arm! Arm! it is— it is— the cannon’s opening roar!Within a window’d niche of that high hallSate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear That sound the first amidst the festival,And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear; And when they smiled because he deem’d it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretch’d his father on a bloody bier,And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:He rush’d into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,And cheeks all pale, which but an hour agoBlush’d at the praise of their own loveliness;And there were sudden partings, such as pressThe life from out young hearts, and choking sighsWhich ne’er might be repeated; who could guessIf ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise?And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the bent of the alarming drumRoused up the soldier ere the morning star;While throng’d the citizens with terror dumb,Or whispering, with white lips— “The foe! They come! they come!”And Ardennes waves above them her green loaves.Dewy with nature’s tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves.Over the unreturning brave,—alas!’Ere evening to be trodden like the grassWhich now beneath them, but above shall growIn its next verdure, when this fiery massOf living valour, rolling on the foeAnd burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay,The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,The morn the marshalling in arms, — the dayBattle’s magnificently-stern array!The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent,The earth is covered thick with other clay,Which her own clay shall cover, heap’d and pent, Rider and horse, —friend, foe, —in one red burial blent.

But the Duke and his principal officers knew well the sterntermination to that, festive scene which was approaching. Oneby one, and in such a way as to attract as little observationas possible, the leaders of the various corps left the ball-room, and took their stations at the head of their men, who werepressing forward through the last hours of the short summernight to the arena of anticipated slaughter.Napoleon’s operations on the 15th had been conducted with signal







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skill and vigor; and their results had been very advantageousfor his plan of the campaign. With his army formed in three vastcolumns, he had struck at the center of the line of cantonmentsof his allied foes; and he had so far made good his blow, thathe had effected the passage of the Sambre, he had beaten withhis left wing the Prussian corps of General Ziethen at Thuin,and with his center he had in person advanced right throughCharleroi upon Fleurus, inflicting considerable loss upon thePrussians that fell back before him. His right column had withlittle opposition moved forward as far as the bridge ofChatelet.Napoleon had thus a powerful force immediately in front of thepoint, which Blucher had fixed for the concentration of thePrussian army, and that concentration was still incomplete. TheFrench Emperor designed to attack the Prussians on the morrowin person, with the troops of his center and right columns, andto employ his left wing in heating back such English troops asmight advance to the help of their allies, and also in aidinghis own attack upon Blucher. He gave the command of this leftwing to Marshal Ney. Napoleon seems not to have originallyintended to employ this celebrated General in the campaign. Itwas only on the night of the 11th of June, that Marshal Neyreceived at Paris an order to join the army. Hurrying forwardto the Belgian frontier he met the Emperor near Charleroi.Napoleon immediately directed him to take the command of theleft wing, and to press forward with it upon Quatre Bras by theline of the road which leads from Charleroi to Brussels, throughGosselies, Frasne, Quatre Bras, Genappe, and Waterloo. Neyimmediately proceeded to the post assigned him; and before tenon the night of the 15th he had occupied Gosselies and Frasne,driving out without much difficulty some weak Belgiandetachments which had been stationed in those villages. Thelateness of the hour, and the exhausted state of the Frenchtroops, who had been marching and fighting since ten in themorning, made him pause from advancing further, to attack themuch more important position of Quatre Bras. In truth, theadvantages which the French gained by their almost superhumanenergy and activity throughout the long day of the 15th of June,were necessarily bought at the price of more delay and inertnessduring the following night and morrow, than would have beenobservable if they had not been thus overtasked. Ney has beenblamed for want of promptness in his attack upon Quatre Eras;and Napoleon has been criticized for not having fought at Lignybefore the afternoon of the 16th: but their censors shouldremember that soldiers are but men; and that there must benecessarily some interval of time, before troops, that have beenworn and weakened by twenty hours of incessant fatigue andstrife, can be fed, rested, reorganized, and brought again intoaction with any hope of success.Having on the night of the 15th placed the most advanced of theFrench under his command in position in front of Frasne, Neyrode back to Charleroi, where Napoleon also arrived aboutmidnight, having returned from directing the operations of thecenter and right column of the French. The Emperor and theMarshal supped together, and remained in earnest conversationtill two in the morning. An hour or two afterwards Ney rode backto Frasne, where he endeavored to collect tidings of the numbersand movements of the enemy in front of him; and also busied






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himself in the necessary duty of learning the amount andcomposition of the troops which he himself was commanding. Hehad been so suddenly appointed to his high station, that he didnot know the strength of the several regiments under him, oreven the names of their commanding officers. He now caused hisaides-de-camp to prepare the requisite returns, and drewtogether the troops, whom he was thus learning before he usedthem.Wellington remained at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball atBrussels till about three o’clock in the morning of the 16th,“showing himself very cheerful,” as Baron Muffling, whoaccompanied him, observes. At five o’clock; the Duke and theBaron were on horseback, and reached the position at Quatre Brasabout eleven. As the French, who were in front of Frasne, wereperfectly quiet, and the Duke was informed that a very largeforce under Napoleon in person was menacing Blucher, it wasthought possible that only a slight detachment of the French wasposted at Frasne in order to mask the English army. In that eventWellington, as he told Baron Muffling, would be able to employhis whole strength in supporting the Prussians: and he proposedto ride across from Quatre Bras to Blucher’s position, in orderto concert with him personally the measures which should betaken in order to bring on a decisive battle with the French.Wellington and Muffling rode accordingly towards Ligny, andfound Marshal Blucher and his staff’ at the windmill of Bry,near that village. The Prussian army, 50,000 strong, was drawnup chiefly along a chain of heights, with the villages ofSombref, St. Amand, and Ligny in their front.These villages were strongly occupied by Prussian detachments,and formed the keys of Blucher’s position. The heads of thecolumns which Napoleon was forming for the attack, were visiblein the distance. The Duke asked Blucher and General Gneisenau(who was Blucher’s adviser in matters of strategy) what theywished him to do. Muffling had already explained to them in afew words the Duke’s earnest desire to support the FieldMarshall, and that he would do all that they wished, providedthey did not ask him to divide his army, which was contrary tohis principles. The Duke wished to advance with his army (assoon as it was concentrated) upon Frasne and Gosselies, andthence to move upon Napoleon’s flank and rear. The Prussianleaders preferred that he should march his men from Quatre Brasby the Namur road, so as to form a reserve in rear of Blucher’sarmy. The Duke replied, “Well, I will come if I am not attackedmyself,” and galloped back with Muffling to Quatre Bras, wherethe French attack was now actually raging.Marshal Ney began the battle about two o’clock in the afternoon.He had at this time in hand about 16,000 infantry, nearly 2000cavalry, and 38 guns. The force which Napoleon nominally placedat his command exceeded 40,000 men. But more than one half ofthese consisted of the first French corps d’armee, under Countd’Erlon; and Ney was deprived of the use of this corps at thetime that he most required it, in consequence of its receivingorders to march to the aid of the Emperor at Ligny. A magnificentbody of heavy cavalry under Kellerman, nearly 5000 strong, andseveral more battalions (if artillery were added to Ney armyduring the battle of Quatre Bras; but his effective infantryforce never exceeded 16,000.When the battle began, the greater part of the Duke’s army was







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yet on its march towards Quatre Bras from Brussels and the otherparts of its cantonments. The force of the Allies, actually inposition there, consisted only of a Dutch and Belgian divisionof infantry, not quite 7000 strong, with one battalion of foot,and one of horse-artillery. The Prince of Orange commanded them.A wood, called the Bois de Bossu, stretched along the right (orwestern) flank of the position of Quatre Bras; a farmhouse andbuilding, called Gemiancourt, stood on some elevated ground inits front; and to the left (or east), were the enclosures of thevillage of Pierremont. The Prince of Orange endeavored to securethese posts; but Ney carried Gemiancourt in the center, andPierremont on the east, and gained occupation of the southernpart of the wood of Bossu. He ranged the chief part of hisartillery on the high ground of Gemiancourt, whence it playedthroughout the action with most destructive effect upon theAllies. He was pressing forward to further advantages, when thefifth infantry division under Sir Thomas Picton, and the Dukeof Brunswick’s corps, appeared upon the scene. Wellington (whohad returned to Quatre Bras from his interview with Bluchershortly before the arrival of these forces) restored the fightwith them; and, as fresh troops of the Allies arrived, they werebrought forward to stem the fierce attacks which Ney’s columnsand squadrons continued to make with unabated gallantry andzeal. The only cavalry of the Anglo-allied army that reachedQuatre Bras during the action, consisted of Dutch and Belgians,and a small force of Brunswickers, under their Duke, who waskilled on the field. These proved wholly unable to encounterKellerman’s cuirassiers and Pire’s lancers; the Dutch and.Belgian infantry also gave way early in the engagement; so thatthe whole brunt of the battle fell on the British and Germaninfantry, They sustained it nobly. Though repeatedly charged bythe French cavalry, though exposed to the murderous fire of theFrench batteries, which from the heights of Gemiancourt sentshot and shell into the devoted squares whenever the Frenchhorsemen withdrew, they not only repelled their assailants, butKempt’s and Pack’s brigades, led on by Picton, actually advancedagainst and through their charging foes, and with sterndetermination made good to the end of the day the ground whichthey had thus boldly won. Some, however, of the Britishregiments were during the confusion assailed by the Frenchcavalry before they could form squares, and suffered severely.One regiment, the 92nd, was almost wholly destroyed by thecuirassiers. A French private soldier, named Lami, of the 8thregiment of cuirassiers, captured one of the English colors, andpresented it to Ney. It was a solitary trophy. The arrival ofthe English Guards about half past six o’clock, enabled the Duketo recover the wood of Boss, which the French had almost entirelywon, and the possession of which by them would have enabled Neyto operate destructively upon the Allied flank and rear. Notonly was the wood of Boss recovered on the British right, butthe enclosures of Pierremont were also carried on theleft.When night set in the French had been driven back on all pointstowards Frasne; but they still held the farm of Gemiancourt infront of the Duke’s center. Wellington and Muffling wereunacquainted with the result of the collateral battle betweenBlucher and Napoleon, the cannonading of which had beendistinctly audible at Quatre Bras throughout the afternoon andevening The Duke observed to Muffling, that of course the two






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Allied armies would assume the offensive against the enemy onthe morrow; and consequently, it would be better to capture thefarm at once, instead of waiting till next morning. Mufflingagreed in the Duke’s views, and Gemiancourt was forthwithattacked by the English and captured with little loss to itsassailants.Meanwhile the French and the Prussians had been fighting in andround the villages of Ligny, Sombref, and St. Amand, from threein the afternoon to nine in the evening, with a savage inveteracyalmost unparalleled in modern warfare. Blucher had in the field,when he began the battle, 83,417 men, and 224 guns. Bulow’scorps, which was 25,000 strong, had not joined him; but the FieldMarshal hoped to be reinforced by it, or by the English armybefore the end of the action. But Bulow, through some error inthe transmission of orders, was far in the rear; and the Dukeof Wellington was engaged, as we have seen, with Marshal Ney.Blucher received early wanting from Baron Muffling that the Dukecould not come to his assistance; but, as Muffling observes,Wellington rendered the Prussians the great service of occupyingmore than 40,000 of the enemy, who otherwise would have crushedBlucher’s right flank. For, not only did the conflict at QuatreBras detain the French troops which actually tool; part in it,but d’Erlon received orders from Ney to join him which hinderedd’Erlon from giving effectual aid to Napoleon. indeed, the wholeof d’Erlon’s corps, in consequence of conflicting directionsfrom Ney and the Emperor, marched and countermarched, during the16th, between Quatre Bras and Ligny without firing a shot ineither battle.Blucher had, in fact, a superiority of more than 12,000 in numberover the French army that attacked him at Ligny. The numericaldifference was even greater at the beginning of the battle, asLobau’s corps did not come up from Charleroi till eight o’clock.After five hours and a half of desperate and long-doubtfulstruggle, Napoleon succeeded in breaking the center of thePrussian line, at Ligny, and in forcing his obstinateantagonists off the field of battle. The issue was attributableto his skill, and not to any want of spirit or resolution on the-part of the Prussian troops; nor did they, though defeated,abate one jot in discipline, heart, or hope. As Blucherobserved, it was a battle in which his army lost the day but notits honor. The Prussians retreated duping the night of the 16th,and the early part of the 17th, with perfect regularity andsteadiness. The retreat was directed not towards Maestricht,where their principal depots mere established, but towardsWavre, so as be able to maintain their communication withWellington’s army, and still follow out the original plan of thecampaign. The heroism with which the Prussians endured andrepaired their defeat at Ligny, is more glorious than manyvictories.The messenger who was sent to inform Wellington of the retreatof the Prussian army, was shot on the way; and it was not untilthe morning of the 17th that the Allies, at Quatre Bras, knewthe result of the battle of Ligny. The Duke was ready at daybreakto take the offensive against the enemy with vigor, his wholearmy being by that time fully assembled. But on learning thatBlucher had been defeated, a different course of action wasclearly necessary. It was obvious that Napoleon’s main armywould now be directed against Wellington, and a retreat was







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inevitable. On ascertaining that the Prussian army had retiredupon Wavre, that there was no hot pursuit of them by the French,and that Bulow’s corps had taken no part in the action at Ligny,the Duke resolved to march his army back towards Brussels, stillintending to cover that city, and to halt at a point in a linewith Wavre, and there restore his communication with Blucher.An officer from Blucher’s army reached the Duke about nineo’clock, from whom he learned the effective strength thatBlucher still possessed, and how little discouraged his ally wasby the yesterday’s battle. Wellington sent word to the Prussiancommander that he would halt in the position of Mont St. Jean,and accept a general battle with the French, if Blucher wouldpledge himself come to his assistance with a single corps of25,000 men. This was readily promised; and after allowing hismen ample time for rest and refreshment, Wellington retired overabout half the space between Quatre Bras and Brussels. He waspursued, but little molested by the main French army, whichabout noon of the 17th moved laterally from Ligny, and joinedNey’s forces. which had advanced through Quatre Bras when theBritish abandoned that position. The Earl of Uxbridge, with theBritish cavalry, covered the retreat of the Duke’s army, withgreat skill and gallantry; and a heavy thunderstorm, withtorrents of rain, impeded the operations of the French pursuingsquadrons. The Duke still expected that the French wouldendeavor to turn his right, and march upon Brussels by the highroad that leads through Mons and Hal. In order to counteractthis anticipated maneuver, he stationed a force of 18,000 men,under Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, at Hal, with ordersto maintain himself there if attacked, as long as possible. TheDuke halted with the rest of his army at the position near MontSt. Jean, which, from a village in its neighborhood, hasreceived the ever-memorable name of the field of Waterloo.Wellington was now about twelve miles distant, on a line runningfrom west to east, from Wavre, where the Prussian army had nowbeen completely reorganized and collected, and where it had beenstrengthened by the junction of Bulow’s troops, which had takenno part in the battle of Ligny. Blucher sent, word from Wavre,to the Duke, that he was coming to help the English at Mont St.Jean, in the morning, not with one corps, but with his wholearmy. The fiery old man only stipulated that the combinedarmies, if not attacked by Napoleon on the 18th, shouldthemselves attack him on the 19th. So far were Blucher and hisarmy from being in the state of annihilation described in theboastful bulletin by which Napoleon informed the Parisians ofhis victory at Ligny. Indeed, the French Emperor seems himselfto have been misinformed as to the extent of loss which he hadinflicted on the Prussians, Had he known in what good order andwith what undiminished spirit they were retiring, he wouldscarcely have delayed sending a large force to press them intheir retreat until noon on the 17th. Such, however, was thecase. It was about that time that he confided to Marshal Grouchythe duty of pursuing the defeated Prussians, and preventing themfrom joining Wellington. He placed for this purpose 38,000 menand 96 guns under his orders. Violent complaints andrecriminations passed afterwards between the Emperor and themarshal respecting the manner in which Grouchy attempted toperform this duty, and the reasons why he failed on the 18th toarrest the lateral movement of the Prussians from Wavre to






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Waterloo. It is sufficient to remark here, that the force whichNapoleon gave to Grouchy (though the utmost that the Emperor’slimited means would allow) was insufficient to make head againstthe entire Prussian army, especially after Bulow’s junction withBlucher. We shall presently have occasion to consider whatopportunities were given to Grouchy during the 18th, and whathe might have effected if he had been a man of original militarygenius.But the failure of Grouchy was in truth mainly owing to theindomitable heroism of Blucher himself; who, though he hadreceived severe personal injuries in the battle of Ligny, wasas energetic and ready as ever in bringing his men into actionagain, and who had the resolution to expose a part of his army,under Thielman, to be overwhelmed by Grouchy at Wavre on the18th, while he urged the march of the mass of his troops uponWaterloo “It is not at Wavre, but at Waterloo,” said the oldField-Marshal, “that the campaign is to he decided;” and herisked a detachment, and won the campaign accordingly.Wellington and Blucher trusted each other as cordially, andcooperated as zealously, as formerly had been the case withMarlborough and Eugene.It was in full reliance on Blucher’s promise to join him, thatthe Duke stood his ground and fought at Waterloo; and those, whohave ventured to impugn the Duke’s capacity as a general, oughtto have had common sense enough to perceive, that to charge theDuke with having won the battle of Waterloo by the help of thePrussians, is really to say that he won it by the very means onwhich he relied, and without the expectation of which the battlewould not have been fought.Napoleon himself has found fault with Wellington for not havingretreated further, so as to complete a junction of his army withBlucher’s, before he risked a general engagement. But as we haveseen, the Duke justly considered it important to protectBrussels. He had reason to expect that his army could singlyresist the French at Waterloo until the Prussians came up, andthat on the Prussians joining there would be a sufficient forceunited under himself and Blucher, for completely overwhelmingthe enemy. And while Napoleon thus censures his great adversary,he involuntarily bears the highest possible testimony to themilitary character of the English, and proves decisively of whatparamount importance was the battle to which he challenged hisfearless opponent. Napoleon asks, “If the English army had beenbeaten at Waterloo, what would have been the use of thosenumerous bodies of troops, of Prussians, Austrians, Germans, andSpaniards, which were advancing to the Rhine, the Alps, and thePyrenees?” The strength of the army, under the Duke of Wellington atWaterloo was 49,608 infantry, 12,402 cavalry, and 5645artillerymen with 156 guns. But of this total of 67,655 men,scarcely 24,000 were British, a circumstance of very seriousimportance, if Napoleon’s own estimate of the relative value oftroops of different nations is to be taken. In the Emperor’s ownwords speaking of this campaign, “A French soldier would not beequal to more than one English soldier, but he would not beafraid to meet two Dutchmen, Prussians, or soldiers of theConfederation.” There were about 6000 men, of the old GermanLegion, with the Duke; these were veteran troops, and ofexcellent quality. Of the rest of the army the Hanoverians and







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Brunswickers proved themselves deserving of confidence andpraise. But the Nassauers, Dutch, and Belgians were almostworthless; and not a few of them were justly suspected of astrong wish to fight, if they fought at all, under the Frencheagles rather than against them. Napoleon’s army at Waterlooconsisted of 48,950 infantry, 15,765 cavalry, 7832 artillerymen,being a total of 71,947 men, and 246 guns. They were the flowerof the national forces of France; and of all the numerous gallantarmies which that martial land has poured forth, never was thereone braver, or better disciplined, or better led, than the hostthat took up its position at Waterloo on the morning of the 18thof June 1815.Perhaps those who have not seen the field of battle at Waterloo,or the admirable model of the ground, and of the conflictingarmies, which was executed by Captain Siborne, may gain agenerally accurate idea of the localities, by picturing tothemselves a valley between two and three miles long, of variousbreadths at different points, but generally not exceeding halfa mile. On each side of the valley, there is a winding chain oflow hills, running somewhat parallel with each other. The.declivity from each of these ranges of hills to the interveningvalley is gentle but not uniform, the undulations of the groundbeing frequent and considerable. The English army was posted onthe northern, and the French army occupied the southern ridge.The artillery of each side thundered at the other from theirrespective heights throughout the day, and the charges of horseand foot were made across the valley that has been described.The village of Mont St. Jean is situate a little behind thecenter of the northern chain of hills, and the village of LaBelle Alliance is close behind the center of the southern ridge.The high road from Charleroi to Brussels (a broad pavedcauseway) runs through both these villages, and bisectstherefore both the English and the French positions. The lineof this road was the line of Napoleon’s intended advance onBrussels.There are some other local particulars connected with thesituation of each army, which it is necessary to bear in mind.The strength of the British position did not consist merely inthe occupation of a ridge of high ground. A village and ravine,called Merk Braine, on the Duke of Wellington’s extreme right,secured his flank from being turned on that side; and on hisextreme left, two little hamlets called La Haye and Papelotte,gave a similar, though a slighter, protection. Behind the wholeBritish position is the extensive forest of Soignies. As noattempt was made by the French to turn either of the Englishflanks, and the battle was a day of straightforward fighting,it is chiefly important to ascertain what posts there were infront of the British line of hills, of which advantage could betaken either to repel or facilitate an attack; and it will beseen that there were two, and that each was of very greatimportance in the action. In front of the British right, thatis to say, on the northern slope of the valley towards itswestern end, there stood an old fashioned Flemish farm-housecalled Goumoat, or Hougoumont, with out-buildings and a garden,and with copse of beech trees of about two acres in extent roundit. This was strongly garrisoned by the allied troops; and,while it was in their possession, it was difficult for the enemyto press on and force the British right wing. On the other hand,






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if the enemy could take it, it would be difficult for that wingto keep its ground on the heights, with a strong post heldadversely in its immediate front, being one that would give muchshelter to the enemy’s marksmen, and great facilities for thesudden concentration of attacking columns. Almost immediatelyin front of the British center, and not so far down the slopeas Hougoumont, there was another farm-house, of a smaller size,called La Haye Sainte, [Not to be confounded with the hamlet ofLa Haye at the extreme left of the British line.] which was alsoheld by the British troops, and the occupation of which was foundto be of very serious consequence.With respect to the French position, the principle feature tobe noticed is the village of Planchenoit, which lay a little inthe rear of their right (i.e. on the eastern side), and whichproved to he of great importance in aiding them to check theadvance of the Prussians.Napoleon, in his memoirs, and other French writers, havevehemently blamed the Duke for having given battle in such aposition as that of Waterloo. They particularly object that theDuke fought without having the means of a retreat, if the attacksof his enemy had proved successful; and that the English army,if once broken, must have lost all its guns and materiel in itsflight through the Forest of Soignies, that lay in its rear. Inanswer to these censures, instead of merely referring to theevent of the battle as proof of the correctness of the Duke’sjudgment, it is to be observed that many military critics ofhigh authority, have considered the position of Waterloo to havebeen admirably adapted for the Duke’s purpose of protectingBrussels by a battle; and that certainly the Duke’s opinion infavor of it was not lightly or hastily formed. It is a remarkablefact (mentioned in the speech of Lord Bathurst when moving thevote of thanks to the Duke in the House of Lords), that when theDuke of Wellington was passing through Belgium in the precedingsummer of 1814, he particularly noticed the strength of theposition of Waterloo, and made a minute of it at the time,stating to those who were with him, that if it ever should behis fate to fight a battle in that quarter for the protectionof Brussels, he should endeavor to do so in that position. Andwith respect to the Forest of Soignies, which the French (andsome few English) critics have thought calculated to prove sofatal to a retreating force, the Duke on the contrary believedit to he a post that might have proved of infinite value to hisarmy in the event of his having been obliged to give way. TheForest of Soignies has no thicket or masses of close growingtrees. It consists of tall beeches, and is everywhere passablefor men and horses. The artillery could have been withdrawn bythe broad road which traverses it towards Brussels; and in themeanwhile a few regiments of resolute infantry could have, heldthe forest and kept the pursuers in check. One of the bestwriters on the Waterloo campaign, Captain Pringle, well observesthat “every person, the least experienced in war, knows theextreme difficulty of forcing infantry from a wood which cannotbe turned.” The defense of the Bois de Bossu near Quatre Brason the 16th of June had given a good proof of this; and the Dukeof Wellington, when speaking in after years of the possibleevents that might have followed if he had been beaten back fromthe open field of Waterloo, pointed to the wood of Soignies ashis secure rallying place, saying, “they never could have beaten







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us so, that we could not have held the wood against them.” Hewas always confident that he could have made good that post untiljoined by the Prussians, upon whose cooperation he throughoutdepended.As has been already mentioned, the Prussians, on the morning ofthe 18th, were at Wavre, which is about twelve miles to the eastof the field of battle of Waterloo. The junction of’ Bulow’sdivision had more than made up for the loss sustained at Ligny;and leaving Thielman with about seventeen thousand men to holdhis ground, as he best could, against the attack which Grouchywas about to make on Wavre. Bulow and Blucher moved with therest of the Prussians through St. Lambert upon Waterloo. It: wascalculated that they would be there by three o’clock: but theextremely difficult nature of the ground which they had totraverse, rendered worse by the torrents of rain that had just,fallen, delayed them long on their twelve miles’ march.An army, indeed, less animated by bitter hate against the enemythan was the Prussian, and under a less energetic chief thanBlucher, would have failed altogether in effecting a passagethrough the swamps, into which the incessant rain hadtransformed the greater part of the ground through which it wasnecessary to move not only with columns of foot, but with cavalryand artillery. At one point of the march, on entering the defileof St. Lambert the spirits of the Prussians almost gave way.Exhausted in the attempts to extricate and drag forward theheavy guns, the men began to murmur. Blucher came to the spot,and heard cries from the ranks of — “We cannot get on.” “But youmust get on,” was the old Field Marshal’s answer. “I have pledgedmy word to Wellington, and you surely will not make me break it.Only exert yourselves for a few hours longer, and we are sureof victory.” This appeal from old “Marshal Forwards,” as thePrussian soldiers loved to call Blucher, had its wonted effect.The Prussians again moved forward, slowly, indeed, and with painand toil; but still they moved forward.The French and British armies lay on the open field during thewet and stormy night of the 17th: and when the dawn of thememorable 18th of June broke, the rain was still descendingheavily upon Waterloo. The rival nations rose from their drearybivouacs, and began to form, each on the high ground which itoccupied. Towards nine the weather grew clearer, and each armywas able to watch the position and arrangements of the other onthe opposite side of the valley.The Duke of Wellington drew up his army in two lines; theprincipal one being stationed near the crest of the ridge ofhills already described, and the other being arranged along theslope in the rear of his position. Commencing from the eastward,on the extreme left of the first or main line, were Vivian’s andVandeleur’s brigades of light cavalry, and the fifth Hanoverianbrigade of infantry, under Von Vincke.Then came Best’s fourth Hanoverian brigade. Detachments fromthese bodies of troops occupied the little villages of Papelotteand La Haye, down the hollow in advance of the left of the Duke’sposition. To the right of Best’s Hanoverians, Bylandt’s brigadeof Dutch and Belgian infantry was drawn up on the outer slopeof the heights. Behind them were the ninth brigade of BritishINFANTRY under Pack; and to the right of these last, but morein advance, stood the eighth brigade of English infantry underKempt. These were close to the Charleroi road, and to the center






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of the entire position. These two English brigades, with thefifth Hanoverian, made up the fifth division, commanded by SirThomas Picton. Immediately to their right, and westward of theCharleroi road, stood the third division, commanded by GeneralAlten, and consisting of Ompteda’s brigade of the King’s Germanlegion, and Kielmansegge’s Hanoverian brigade. The importantpost of La Haye Sainte, which it will be remembered lay in frontof the Duke’s center, close to the Charleroi road, wasgarrisoned with troops from this division. Westward, and on theright of Kielmansegge’s Hanoverians, stood the fifth Britishbrigade under Halkett; and behind, Kruse’s Nassau brigade wasposted. On the right of Halkett’s men stood the English Guards.They were in two brigades, one commanded by Maitland, and theother by Byng. The entire division was under General Cooke. Thebuildings and gardens of Hougoumont, which lay immediately underthe height, on which stood the British Guards, were principallymanned by detachments from Byug’s brigade, aided by some braveHanoverian rifle-men, and accompanied by a battalion of a Nassauregiment. On a plateau in the rear of Cooke’s division of Guards,and inclining westward towards the village of Mark Braine, wereClinton’s second infantry division, composed of Adams’s thirdbrigade of light infantry, Du Flat’s first brigade of the king’sGerman legion, and the third Hanoverian brigade under ColonelHalkett.The Duke formed his second line of cavalry. This only extendedbehind the right and center of his first line. The largest masswas drawn up behind the brigades of infantry in the center, oneither side of the Charleroi road. The brigade of householdcavalry under Lord Somerset was on the immediate right of theroad, and on the left of it was Ponsonby’s brigade, Behind thesewere Trip’s and Ghingy’s brigades of Dutch and Belgian horse.The 3rd Hussars of the King’s German Legion were to the rightof Somerset’s brigade. To the right of these, and behindMaitland’s infantry, stood the 3rd Brigade under Dornberg,consisting of the 23rd English Light Dragoons, and the regimentsof Light Dragoons of the King’s German Legion. The last cavalryon the right was Grant’s brigade, stationed in the rear of theFoot-Guards. The corps of Brunswickers, both horse and foot, andthe 10th British brigade of foot, were in reserve behind thecenter and right of the entire position. The artillery wasdistributed at convenient, intervals along the front of thewhole line. Besides the generals who have been mentioned, LordHill, Lord Uxbridge (who had the general command of thecavalry), the Prince of Orange, and General Chasse, werepresent, and acting under the Duke.Prince Frederick’s force remained at Hal, and took no part inthe battle of the 18th. The reason for this arrangement (whichhas been much cavilled at), may be best given in the words ofBaron Muffling:— “The Duke had retired from Quatre Bras in threecolumns, by three chaises; and on the evening of the 17th, PrinceFrederick of orange was at Hal, Lord Hill at Braine la Leud, andthe Prince of Orange with the reserve, at Mont St. Jean. Thisdistribution was necessary, as Napoleon could dispose of thesethree roads for his advance on Brussels. Napoleon on the 17thhad pressed on by Genappe as far as Rossomme. On the two otherroads no enemy had yet shown himself. On the 18th the offensivewas taken by Napoleon on its greatest scale, but still theNivelles road was not overstepped by his left wing These







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circumstances made it possible to draw Prince Frederick to thearmy, which would certainly have been done if entirely newcircumstances had not arisen. The Duke had, twenty-four hoursbefore, pledged himself to accept a battle at Mont St. Jean ifBlucher would assist him there with one corps, of 25,000 men.This being promised, the Duke was taking his measures fordefense, when he learned that, in addition to the one corpspromised, Blucher was actually already on the march with hiswhole force, to break in by Planchenoit on Napoleon’s flank andrear. If three corps of the Prussian army should penetrate bythe unguarded plateau of Russomme, which was not improbable,Napoleon would be thrust from his line of retreat by Genappe,and might possibly lose even that by Nivelles. In this casePrince Frederick, with his 19,000 men (who might be accountedsuperfluous at Mont, St. Jean:, might have rendered the mostessential service.” It is also worthy of observation thatNapoleon actually detached a force of 2000 cavalry to threatenHal, though they returned to the main French camp during thenight of the l7th. On the opposite heights the French army was drawn up in twogeneral lines, with the entire force of the Imperial Guards,cavalry as well as infantry, in rear of the center, as a reserve.The first line of the French army was formed of the two corpscommanded by Count d’Erlon and Count Reille. D’Erlon’s corps wason the right, that is, eastward of the Charleroi road, andconsisted of four divisions of infantry under Generals Durette,Marcognet, Alix, and Donzelot, and of one division of lightcavalry under General Jaquinot. Count Reille’s corps formed theleft or western wing, and was formed of Bachelu’s, Foy’s, andJerome Bonaparte’s divisions of infantry, and of Pire’s divisionof cavalry. The right wing of the second general French line wasformed of Milhaud’s corps, consisting of two divisions of heavycavalry. The left wing of this line was formed by Kellerman’scavalry corps, also in two divisions. Thus each of the corps ofinfantry that composed the first line had a corps of cavalrybehind it; but the second line consisted also of Lobau’s corpsof infantry, and Domont and Subervie’s divisions of lightcavalry; these three bodies of troops being drawn up on eitherside of La Belie Alliance, and forming the center of the secondline. The third, or reserve line, had its center composed of theinfantry of the Imperial Guard. Two regiments of grenadiers andtwo of chasseurs, formed the foot of the Old Guard under GeneralFriant. The Middle Guard, under Count Morand, was similarlycomposed; while two regiments of voltigeurs, and two oftirailleurs, under Duhesme, constituted the Young Guard. Thechasseurs and lancers of the Guard were on the right of theinfantry, under Lefebvre Desnouettes; and the grenadiers anddragoons of the Guards, under Guyot, were on the left. All theFrench corps comprised, besides their cavalry and infantryregiments, strong batteries of horse artillery; and Napoleon’snumerical superiority in guns was of deep importance throughoutthe action.Besides the leading generals who have been mentioned ascommanding particular corps, Ney and Soult were present, andacted as the Emperor’s lieutenants in the battle.English military critics have highly eulogized the admirablearrangement which Napoleon made of his forces of each arm, soas to give him the most ample means of sustaining, by an






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immediate and sufficient support, any attack, from whateverpoint he might direct it; and of drawing promptly together astrong force, to resist any attack that might be made on himselfin any part of the field. When his troops were all arrayed. herode along the lines, receiving everywhere the enthusiasticcheers from his men, of whose entire devotion to him hisassurance was now doubly sure. On the northern side of the valleythe Duke’s army was also drawn up and ready to meet the menacedattack.Wellington had caused, on the preceding night, every brigade andcorps to take up its station on or near the part of the groundwhich it was attended to hold in the coming battle. He had slepta few hours at his headquarters in the village of Waterloo; andrising on the 18th, while it was yet deep night, he wrote severalletters to the Governor of Antwerp, to the English Minister atBrussels, and other official personages, in which he expressedhis confidence that all would go well, but “as it was necessaryto provide against serious losses should any accident occur,”he gave a series of judicious orders for what should be clonein the rear of the army, in the event of the battle going againstthe Allies. He also, before he left the village of Waterloo, sawto the distribution of the reserves of ammunition which had beenparked there, so that supplies should be readily forwarded toevery part of the line of battle, where they might be requiredThe Duke, also, personally inspected the arrangements that hadbeen made for receiving the wounded, and providing temporaryhospitals in the houses in the rear of the army. Then, mountinga favorite charger, a small thorough-bred chestnut horse, named“Copenhagen,” Wellington rode forward to the range of hillswhere his men were posted. Accompanied by his staff and by thePrussian general Muffling, he rode along his lines, carefullyinspecting all the details of his position. Hougoumont was theobject of his special attention. He rode down to the south-eastern extremity of its enclosures, and after having examinedthe nearest French troops, he made some changes in thedisposition of his own men, who were to defend that importantpost.Having given his final orders about Hougoumont the Duke gallopedhack to the high ground in the right center of his position; andhalting there, sat watching the enemy on the opposite heights,and conversing with his staff with that cheerful serenity whichwas ever his characteristic in the hour of battle.Not all brave men are thus gifted; and many a glance of anxiousexcitement must have been cast across the valley that separatedthe two hosts during the protracted pause which ensued betweenthe completion of Napoleon’s preparations for attack and theactual commencement of the contest. It was, indeed, an awfulcalm before the coming storm, when armed myriads stood gazingon their armed foes, scanning their number, their array, theirprobable powers of resistance and destruction, listening withthrobbing hearts for the momentarily expected note of death;while visions of victory and glory came thronging on eachsoldier’s high-strung brain, not unmingled with recollectionsof the home which his fall might soon leave desolate, nor withoutshrinking nature sometimes prompting the cold thought, that ina few moments he might be writhing in agony, or lie a trampledand mangled mass of clay on the grass now waving so freshly andpurely before him. Such thoughts will arise in human breasts,







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though the brave man soon silences “the child within us thattrembles before death,” and nerves himself for the comingstruggle by the mental preparation which Xenophon has finelycalled “the soldier’s arraying his own soul for battle.” Well,too, may we hope and believe that many a spirit sought aid froma higher and holier source; and that many a fervent though silentprayer arose on that Sabbath morn (the battle of Waterloo wasfought on a Sunday) to the Lord of Sabaoth, the God of Battles,from the ranks, whence so many thousands were about to appearthat day before His judgment-seat.Not only to those who were thus present as spectators and actorsin the dread drama, but to all Europe, the decisive contest thenimpending between the rival French and English nations, eachunder its chosen chief, was the object of exciting interest anddeepest solicitude. “Never, indeed, had two such generals as theDuke of Wellington and the Emperor Napoleon encountered sincethe day when Scipio and Hannibal met at Zama.” The two great champions, who now confronted each other, wereequals in years, and each had entered the military professionat the same early age. The more conspicuous stage, on which theFrench general’s youthful genius was displayed, his heritage ofthe whole military power of the French Republic, the positionon which for years he was elevated as sovereign head of an empiresurpassing that of Charlemagne, and the dazzling results of hisvictories, which made and unmade kings, had given him aformidable pre-eminence in the eyes of mankind. Military menspoke with justly rapturous admiration of the brilliancy of hisfirst Italian campaigns, when he broke through the pedantry oftraditional tactics, and with a small but promptly wieldedforce, shattered army after army of the Austrians, conqueredprovinces and capitals, dictated treaties, and annihilated orcreated states. The iniquity of his Egyptian expedition was toooften forgotten in contemplating the skill and boldness withwhich he destroyed the Mameluke cavalry at the Pyramids, and theTurkish infantry at Aboukir. None could forget the marvelouspassage of the Alps in 1800, or the victory of Marengo, whichwrested Italy back from Austria, and destroyed the fruit oftwenty victories, which the enemies of France had gained overher in the absence of her favorite chief. Even higher seemed theglories of his German campaigns, the triumphs of Ulm, ofAusterlitz, of Jena, of Wagram. Napoleon’s disasters in Russia,in 1812, were imputed by his admirers to the elements; hisreverses in Germany, in 1813, were attributed by them totreachery: and even those two calamitous years had beensignalized by his victories at Borodino, at Lutzen, at Bautzen,at Dresden, and at Hanau. His last campaign, in the early monthsof 1814, was rightly cited as the, most splendid exhibition ofhis military genius, when, with a far inferior army, he longchecked and frequently defeated the vast hosts that were pouredupon France. His followers fondly hoped that the campaign of1815 would open with another “week of miracles,” like that whichhad seen his victories at Montmirail and Montereau. The laurelof Ligny was even now fresh upon his brews. Blucher had not stoodbefore him; and who was the Adversary that now should bar theEmperor’s way?That Adversary had already overthrown the Emperor’s bestgenerals, and the Emperor’s best armies; and, like Napoleonhimself, had achieved a reputation in more than European wars.






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Wellington was illustrious as the destroyer of the Mahrattapower, as the liberator of Portugal and Spain, and thesuccessful invader of Southern France. In early youth he hadheld high command in India; and had displayed eminent skill inplanning and combining movements, and unrivaled celerity andboldness in execution. On his return to Europe several yearspassed away before any fitting opportunity was accorded for theexercise of his genius. In this important respect, Wellington,as a subject, and Napoleon, as a sovereign, were far differentlysituated. At length his appointment to the command in theSpanish Peninsula gave him the means of showing Europe thatEngland had a general who could revive the glories of Crecy, ofPoictiers, of Againcourt, of Blenheim, and of Ramilies. At thehead of forces always numerically far inferior to the armieswith which Napoleon deluged the Peninsula; — thwarted by jealousand incompetent allies; — ill-supported by friends, and assailedby factious enemies at home Wellington maintained the war forseven years, unstained by any serious reverse, and marked byvictory in thirteen pitched battles, at Vimiera, the Douro,Talavera, Basic, Founts donor, Salamanca., Victoria, thePyrenees, the Bidassoa, the Nive, the Nivelle, Orthes, andToulouse. Junot, Victor, Massena, Ney, Marmont, and Jourdain, -marshals whose names were the terrors of continental Europe —had been baffled by his skill, and smitten down by his energy,while he liberated the kingdoms of the Peninsula from them andtheir Imperial master. In vain did Napoleon at last dispatchSoult, the ablest of his lieutenants, to turn the tide ofWellington’s success, and defend France against the Englishinvader. Wellington met Soult’s maneuvers with superior skill,and his boldness with superior vigor. When Napoleon’s firstabdication, in 1814, suspended hostilities, Wellington wasmaster of the fairest districts of Southern France; and hadunder him a veteran army, with which (to use his own expressivephrase) “he felt he could have gone anywhere and done anything.”The fortune of war had hitherto kept separate the orbits in whichNapoleon and he had moved. Now, on the ever memorable 18th ofJune, 1815, they met at last.It is, indeed, remarkable that Napoleon, during his numerouscampaigns in Spain as well as other countries, not only neverencountered the Duke of Wellington before the day of Waterloo,but that he was never until then personally engaged with Britishtroops, except at the siege of Toulon, in 1793. which was thevery first incident of his military career. Many, however, ofthe French generals who were with him in 1815, knew well, bysharp experience, what English soldiers were, and what theleader was who now headed them. Ney, Foy, and other officers whohad served in the Peninsula. warned Napoleon that he would findthe English infantry “very devils in fight.” The Emperor,however, persisted in employing the old system of attack, withwhich the French generals often succeeded against continentaltroops, but which had always failed against the English in thePeninsula. He adhered to his usual tactics of employing theorder of the column; a mode of attack probably favored by him(as Sir Walter Scott remarks) on account of his faith in theextreme valor of the French officers by whom the column washeaded. It is a threatening formation, well calculated to shakethe firmness of ordinary foes; but which, when steadily met, asthe English have met it, by heavy volleys of musketry from an







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extended line, followed up by a resolute bayonet charge, hasalways resulted in disaster to the assailants.See especially Sir W. Napier’s glorious pictures of the battlesof Busaco and Albuera. The theoretical advantages of the attackin column, and its peculiar fitness for a French army, are setforth in the Chevalier Folard’s “Traite de la Colonne,” prefixedto the first volume of his “Polybius.” See also the preface tohis sixth volume.It was approaching noon before the action commenced. Napoleon,in his Memoirs, gives as the reason for this delay, the mirystate of the ground through the heavy rain of the preceding nightand day, which rendered it impossible for cavalry or artilleryto maneuver on it till a few hours of dry weather had given itits natural consistency. It has been supposed, also, that hetrusted to the effect which the sight of the imposing array ofhis own forces was likely to produce on the part of the alliedarmy. The Belgian regiments had been tampered with; and Napoleonhad well-founded hopes of seeing them quit the Duke ofWellington in a body, and range themselves under his own eagles.The Duke, however, who knew and did not trust them, had guardedagainst the risk of this, by breaking up the corps of Belgians,and distributing them in separate regiments among troops on whomhe could rely.At last, at about half-past eleven o’clock, Napoleon began thebattle by directing a powerful force from his left wing underhis brother, Prince Jerome, to attack Hougoumont. Column aftercolumn of the French now descended from the west of the southernheights, and assailed that post with fiery valor, which wasencountered with the most determined bravery. The French won thecopse round the house, but a party of the British Guards heldthe house itself throughout the day. The whole of Byng’s brigadewas required to man this hotly-contested post. Amid shell andshot, and the blazing fragments of part of the buildings, thisobstinate contest was continued. But still the English were firmin Hougoumont; though the French occasionally moved forward insuch numbers as enabled them to surround and mask it with partof their troops from their left wing, while others pressedonward up the slope, and assailed the British right.The cannonade, which commenced at first between the Britishright and the French left, in consequence: of the attack onHougoumont, soon became general alone both lines; and, about oneo’clock, Napoleon directed a grand attack to be made underMarshal Ney upon the center and left wing of the allied army.For this purpose four columns of infantry, amounting to abouteighteen thousand men, were collected, supported by a strongdivision of cavalry under the celebrated Kellerman; and seventy-four guns were brought forward ready to be posted on the ridgeof a little undulation of the ground in the interval between thetwo principal chains of heights, so as to bring their fire tobear on the Duke’s line at a range of about seven hundred yards.By the combined assault of these formidable forces, led on byNey, “the bravest of the brave,” Napoleon hoped to force theleft center of the British position, to take La Haye Sainte, andthen pressing forward, to occupy also the farm of Mont St. Jean.He then could cut the mass of Wellington’s troops off from theirline of retreat upon Brussels, and from their own left, and alsocompletely sever them from any Prussian troops that might beapproaching.






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The columns destined for this great and decisive operationdescended majestically from the French line of hills, and gainedthe ridge of the intervening eminence, on which the batteriesthat supported them were now ranged. As the columns descendedagain from this eminence, the seventy-four guns opened overtheir heads with terrible effect upon the troops of the Alliesthat were stationed on the heights to the left of the Charleroiroad. One of the French columns kept to the east, and attackedthe extreme left of the Allies; the other three continued tomove rapidly forwards upon the left center of the alliedposition. The front line of the Allies here was composed ofBylandt’s brigade of Dutch and Belgians. As the French columnsmoved up the south ward slope of the height on which the Dutchand Belgians stood, and the skirmishers in advance began to opentheir fire, Bylandt’s entire brigade turned and fled indisgraceful and disorderly panic; but there were men more worthyof the name behind.In this part of the second line of the Allies were posted Packand Kempt’s brigades of English infantry, which had sufferedseverely at Quatre Bras. But Picton was here as general ofdivision, and not even Ney himself surpassed in resolute braverythat stern and fiery spirit. Picton brought his two brigadesforward, side by side, in a thin two-deep line. Thus joinedtogether, they were not three thousand strong. With these Pictonhad to make head against the three victorious French columns,upwards of four times that strength, and who, encouraged by theeasy rout of the Dutch and Belgians, now came confidently overthe ridge of the hill. The British infantry stood firm; and asthe French halted and began to deploy into line, Picton seizedthe critical moment. He shouted in his stentorian voice toKempt’s brigade: “A volley, and then charge!” at a distance ofless than thirty yards that volley was poured upon the devotedfirst, sections of the nearest column; and then, with a fiercehurrah, the British dashed in with the bayonet. Picton was shotdead as he rushed forward, but his men pushed on with the coldsteel. The French reeled back in confusion. Pack’s infantry hadchecked the other two columns, and down came a whirlwind ofBritish horse on the whole mass, sending them staggering fromthe crest of the hill, and cutting them down by whole battalions.Ponsonby’s brigade of heavy cavalry (the Union Brigade, as itwas called, from its being made up of the British Royals, theScots Greys, and the Irish Inniskillings), did this goodservice. On went the horsemen amid the wrecks of the Frenchcolumns, capturing two eagles, and two thousand prisoners;onwards still they galloped, and sabered the artillerymen ofNey’s seventy four advanced guns; then severing the traces, andcutting the throats of the artillery horses, they rendered theseguns totally useless to the French throughout the remainder ofthe day. While thus far advanced beyond the British position anddisordered by success, they were charged by a large body ofFrench lancers, and driven back with severe loss, tillVandeleur’s light horse came to their aid, and beat off theFrench lancers in their turn.Equally unsuccessful with the advance of the French infantry inthis grand attack, had been the efforts of the French cavalrywho moved forward in support of it, along the east of theCharleroi road. Somerset’s cavalry of the English HouseholdBrigade had been launched, on the right of Picton’s division,







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against the French horse, at the same time that the English UnionBrigade of heavy horse charged the French infantry columns onthe left.Somerset’s brigade was formed of the Life Guards, the Blues, andthe Dragoon Guards. The hostile cavalry, which Kellerman ledforward, consisted chiefly of Cuirassiers. This steel-clad massof French horsemen rode down some companies of German infantry,near La Haye Sainte, and flushed with success, they boundedonward to the ridge of the British position. The EnglishHousehold Brigade, led on by the Earl of Uxbridge in person,spurred forward to the encounter, and in an instant, the twoadverse lines of strong swordsmen, on their strong steeds,dashed furiously together. A desperate and sanguinary hand-to-hand fight ensued, in which the physical superiority of theAnglo-Saxon guided by equal skill, and animated with equalvalor, was made decisively manifest. Back went the chosencavalry of France; and after them, in hot pursuit, spurred theEnglish Guards. They went forward as far and as fiercely as theircomrades of the Union Brigade; and, like them, the Householdcavalry suffered severely before they regained the Britishposition, after their magnificent charge and adventurouspursuit.Napoleon’s grand effort to break the English left center, hadthus completely failed; and his right wing was seriouslyweakened by the heavy loss which it had sustained. Hougoumontwas still being assailed, and was still successfully resisting.Troops were now beginning to appear at the edge of the horizonon Napoleon’s right, which he too well knew to be Prussian,though he endeavored to persuade his followers that they wereGrouchy’s men coming to their aid.Grouchy was in fact now engaged at Wavre with his whole force,against Thielman’s single Prussian corps, while the other threecorps of the Prussian army were moving without opposition, savefrom the difficulties of the ground, upon Waterloo. Grouchybelieved, on the 17th, and caused Napoleon to believe, that thePrussian army was retreating by lines of march remote fromWaterloo upon Namur and Maestricht Napoleon learned early on the18th, that there were Prussians in Wavre, and felt jealous aboutthe security of his own right. He accordingly, before heattacked the English, sent Grouchy orders to engage thePrussians at Wavre without delay, and to approach the mainFrench army, so us to unite his communication with theEmperor’s. Grouchy entirely neglected this last part of hisinstructions; and in attacking the Prussians whom he found atWavre, he spread his force more and more towards his right, thatis to say, in the direction most remote from Napoleon. He thusknew nothing of Blucher’s and Bulow’s flank march upon Waterloo,till six in the evening of the 18th, when he received a notewhich Soult by Napoleon’s orders had sent off from the field ofbattle at Waterloo at one o’clock, to inform Grouchy that Bulowwas coming over the heights of St. Lambert, on the Emperor’sright flank, and directing Grouchy to approach and join the mainarmy instantly and crush Bulow en flagrant delit. It was thentoo late for Grouchy to obey; but it is remarkable that as earlyas noon on the 18th, and while Grouchy had not proceeded as faras Wavre, he and his suite heard the sound of heavy cannonadingin the direction of Planchenoit and Mont St. Jean. GeneralGerard, who was with Grouchy, implored him to march towards the






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cannonade, and join his operations with those of Napoleon, whowas evidently engaged with the English. Grouchy refused to doso, or even to detach part, of his force in that direction. Hesaid that his instructions were to fight the Prussians at Wavre.He marched upon Wavre and fought for the rest of the day withThielman accordingly, while Blucher and Bulow were attacking theEmperor.[I have heard the remark made that Grouchy twice had in his handsthe power of changing the destinies of Europe, and twice wantednerve to act: first when he flinched from landing the Frencharmy at Bantry Bay in 1796 (he was second in command to Hochewhose ship was blown back by a storm). and secondly, when hefailed to lend his whole force from Wavre to the scene ofdecisive conflict at Waterloo. But such were the arrangementsof the Prussian General, that even if Grouchy had marched uponwaterloo, he would have been held in check by the nearestPrussian corps, or certainly by the two nearest ones, while therest proceeded to join Wellington. This, however, would havediminished the Number of Prussians who appeared at Waterloo, and(what is still more important) would have kept them back to alater hour.There are some very valuable remarks on this subject in the 70thNo. of the “Quarterly,” in an article on the “Life of Blucher,”usually attributed to Sir Francis Head. The Prussian writer,General Clausewitz, is there cited as “expressing n positiveopinion, in which every military critic but a Frenchman mustconcur, that, even had the whole of Grouchy’s force been atNapoleon’s disposal, the Duke had nothing to fear pendingBlucher’s arrival.







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“The Duke is often talked of as having exhausted his reservesin the action. This is another gross error, which Clausewitz hasthoroughly disposed of. He enumerates the tenth British brigade.the division of Chasse, and the cavalry of Collaert, as havingbeen little or not at all engages; and he might have also addedtwo brigades of light cavalry.’ The fact. also, that Wellingtondid not at any part of the day order up Prince Frederick’s corpsfrom Hal, is a conclusive proof that the Duke was not sodistressed as some writers have represented. Hal is not tenmiles from the field of Waterloo.]Napoleon had witnessed with bitter disappointment the rout ofhis troops, — foot, horse, and artillery,-which attacked theleft center of the English, and the obstinate resistance whichthe garrison of Hougoumont opposed to all the exertions of hisleft wing. He now caused the batteries along the line of highground held by him to be strengthened, and for some time anunremitting and most destructive cannonade raged across thevalley, to the partial cessation of other conflict. But thesuperior fire of the French artillery, though it weakened, couldnot break the British line, and more close and summary measureswere requisite.It was now about half-past three o’clock; and thoughWellington’s army had suffered severely by the unremittingcannonade, and in the late desperate encounter, no part of theBritish position had been forced. Napoleon determined therefore






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to try what effect he could produce on the British center andright by charges of his splendid cavalry, brought on in suchforce that the Duke’s cavalry could. not check them. Freshtroops were at the same time sent to assail La Haye Sainte andHougoumont, the possession of these posts being the Emperor’sunceasing object. Squadron after squadron of the Frenchcuirassiers accordingly ascended the slopes on the Duke’s right,and rode forward with dauntless courage against the batteriesof the British artillery in that part of the field. Theartillery-men were driven from their guns, and the cuirassierscheered loudly at their supposed triumph. But the Duke hadformed his infantry in squares, and the cuirassiers charged invain against; the impenetrable hedges of bayonets, while thefire front the inner ranks of the squares told with terribleeffect on their squadrons. Time after time they rode forwardwith invariably the same result.: and as they receded from eachattack the British artillery-men rushed forward from the centersof the squares, where they had taken refuge, and plied theirguns on the retiring horsemen.

On came the whirlwind—like the lastBut fiercest sweep of tempest-blast-On came the whirlwind — steel-gleams broke Like lightning through the rolling smoke;The war was waked anew,Three hundred cannon-mouths roar’d loud, And from their throats, with flash and cloud, Their showers of iron threw. Beneath their fire, in full career,Rush’d on the ponderous cuirassier,The lancer couch’d his ruthless spear,And hurrying as to havoc near,The cohorts’ eagles flewIn one dark torrent, broad and strong, The advancing onset roll’d along,Forth harbinger’d by fierce acclaim,That, from the shroud of smoke and flame, Peal’d wildly the imperial name.But on the British heart were lostThe terrors of the charging host;For not an eye the storm that view’d Changed its proud glance of fortitude,Nor was one forward footstep staid, As dropp’d the dying and the dead.Fast as their ranks the thunders tear,Fast they renew’d each serried square;And on the wounded and the slain Closed their diminish’d files again,Till from their line scarce spears’ lengths three Emerging from the smoke they seeHelmet, and plume, and panoply,-Then waked their fire at once!Each musketeer’s revolving knell,As fast, as regularly fell,As when they practice to display Their discipline on festal day. Then down went helm and lance, Down were the eagle banners sent,Down reeling steeds and riders went, Corslets were pierced, and pennons rent;And, to augment the fray,Wheel’d full against their staggering flanks. The English horsemen’s foaming ranks Forced their resistless way.Then to the musket-knell succeedsThe clash of swords—the neigh of steeds-As plies the smith his clanging trade,







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Against the cuirass rang the blade;And while amid their close arrayThe well-served cannon rent their way,And while amid their scatter’d bandRaged the fierce rider’s bloody brand, Recoil’d in common rout and fear,Lancer and guard and cuirassier,Horsemen and foot,—a mingled host,Their leaders fall’n, their standards lost. — Scott.

Nearly the whole of Napoleon’s magnificent body of heavy cavalrywas destroyed in these fruitless attempts upon the Britishright. But in another part of the field fortune favored him fora time. Two French columns of infantry from Donzelot’s divisiontook La Haye Sainte between six and seven o’clock, and the meanswere now given for organizing another formidable attack on thecenter of the Allies.There was no time to be lost—Blucher and Bulow were beginningto press hard upon the French right. As early as five o’clock,Napoleon bad been obliged to detach Lobau’s infantry andDomont’s horse to check these new enemies. They succeeded indoing so for a time; but as larger numbers of the Prussians cameon the field, they turned Lobau’s right flank, and sent a strongforce to seize the village of Planchenoit, which, it will beremembered, lay in the rear of the French right.The design of the Allies was not merely to prevent Napoleon fromadvancing upon Brussels, but to cut off his line of retreat andutterly destroy his army. The defense of Planchenoit thereforebecame absolutely essential for the safety of the French, andNapoleon was obliged to send his Young Guard to occupy thatvillage, which was accordingly held by them with great gallantryagainst the reiterated assaults of the Prussian left, underBulow. Three times did the Prussians fight their way intoPlanchenoit, and as often did the French drive: them out: thecontest was maintained with the fiercest desperation on bothsides, such being the animosity between the two nations thatquarter was seldom given or even asked. Other Prussian forceswere now appearing on the field nearer to the English left; whomalso Napoleon kept in check, by troops detached for thatpurpose. Thus a large part of the French army was now thrownback on a line at right angles with the line of that portionwhich still confronted and assailed the English position. Butthis portion was now numerically inferior to the force under theDuke of Wellington, which Napoleon had been assailing throughoutthe day, without gaining any other advantage than the captureof La Haye Sainte. It is true that, owing to the gross misconductof the greater part of the Dutch and Belgian troops, the Dukewas obliged to rely exclusively on his English and Germansoldiers, and the ranks of these had been fearfully thinned; butthe survivors stood their ground heroically, and opposed aresolute front to every forward movement of their enemies.On no point of the British line was the pressure more severethan on Halkett’s brigade in the right center, which wascomposed of battalions of tile 30th, the 33rd, the 69th, and the73rd British regiments. We fortunately can quote from thejournal of a brave officer of the 30th, a narrative of what tookplace in this part of the field. The late Major Macready servedat Waterloo in the light company of the 30th. The extent of theperil and the carnage which Halkett’s brigade had to encounter,






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may be judged of by the fact that this light company marchedinto the field three officers and fifty-one men, and that at theend of the battle they stood one officer and ten men. MajorMacready’s blunt soldierly account of what he actually saw andfelt, gives a far better idea of the terrific scene, than canbe gained from the polished generalizations which theconventional style of history requires, or even from the glowingstanzas of the poet. During the earlier part of the day Macreadyand his light company were thrown forward as skirmishers infront of the brigade; but when the French cavalry commencedtheir attacks on the British right center, he and his comradeswere ordered back. The brave soldier thus himself describes whatpassed:

“Before the commencement of this attack our company andthe Grenadiers of the 73rd were skirmishing briskly inthe low ground, covering our guns, and annoying thoseof the enemy. The line of tirailleurs opposed to us wasnot stronger than our own, but on a sudden they werereinforced by numerous bodies, and several guns beganplaying on us with canister. Our poor fellows droppedvery fast, and Colonel Vigoureux, Rumley, and Pratt,were carried off badly wounded in about two minutes. Iwas now commander of our company. We stood under thishurricane of small shot till Halkett sent to order usin, and I brought away about a third of the light bobs;the rest were killed or wounded, and I really wonder howone of them escaped. As our bugler was killed, I shoutedand made signals to move by the left, in order to avoidthe fire of our guns, and to put as good a face upon thebusiness as possible.“When I reached Lloyd’s abandoned guns, I stood nearthem for about a minute to contemplate the scene: it wasgrand beyond description. Hougoumont and its wood sentup a broad flame through the dark masses of smoke thatoverhung the field; beneath this cloud the French wereindistinctly visible. Here a waving mass of long redfeathers could be seen; there, gleams as from a sheetof steel showed that the cuirassiers were moving; 400cannon were belching forth fire and death on every side;the roaring and shouting were indistinguishablycommixed—together they gave me an idea of a laboringvolcano. Bodies of infantry and cavalry were pouringdown on us, and it was time to leave contemplation, soI moved towards our columns, which were standing up insquare. Our regiment and 73rd formed one, and 33rd and69th another; to our right beyond them were the Guards,and on our left the Hanoverians and German legion of ourdivision. As I entered the rear face of our square I hadto step over a body, and, looking down, recognized HarryBeere, an officer of our Grenadiers, who about an hourbefore shook hands with me, laughing, as I left thecolumns. I was on the usual terms of military intimacywith poor Harry — that is to say, if either of us haddied a natural death, the other would have pitied himas a good fellow, and smiled at his neighbor as hecongratulated him on the step; but seeing his Herculean







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frame and animated countenance thus suddenly stiff andmotionless before me (I know not whence the feelingcould originate, for I had just seen my dearest frienddrop, almost with indifference), the tears started inmy eyes as I sighed out, ‘Poor Harry!’ The tear was notdry on my cheek when poor Harry was no longer thoughtof. In a few minutes after, the enemy’s cavalry gallopedup and crowned the crest of our position. Our guns wereabandoned, and they formed between the two brigades,about a hundred paces in our front. Their first chargewas magnificent. As soon as they quickened their trotinto a gallop, the cuirassiers bent their heads, so thatthe peaks of their helmets looked like visors, and theyseemed cased in armor from the plume to the saddle. Nota shot was fired till they were within thirty yards,when the word was given, and our men fired away at them.The effect was magical. Through the smoke we could seehelmets falling, cavaliers starting from their seatswith convulsive springs as they received our balls,horses plunging and rearing in the agonies of fright andpain, and crowds of the soldiery dismounted, part of thesquadron in retreat, but the more daring remainderbacking their horses to force them on our bayonets. Ourfire soon disposed of these gentlemen. The main body re-formed in our front, and rapidly and gallantly repeatedtheir attacks. In fact, from this time (about fouro’clock) till near six, we had a constant repetition ofthese brave but unavailing charges. There was nodifficulty in repulsing them, but our ammunitiondecreased alarmingly. At length an artillery wagongalloped up, emptied two or three casks of cartridgesinto the square, and we were all comfortable.“The best cavalry is contemptible to a steady and wellsupplied infantry regiment; even our men saw this, andbegan to pity the useless perseverance of theirassailants, and, as they advanced, would growl out,‘Here come these fools again!’ One of their superiorofficers tried a ruse de guerre, by advancing anddropping his sword, as though he surrendered; some ofus were deceived by him, but Halkett ordered the men tofire, and he coolly retired, saluting us. Their devotionwas invincible. One officer whom we had taken prisonerwas asked what force Napoleon might have in the field,and replied with a smile of mingled derision andthreatening, ‘Vous verrez bientot sa force, messieurs.’A private cuirassier was wounded and dragged into thesquare; his only cry was, ‘Tuez donc, tuez, tuez moi,soldats!’ and as one of our men dropped dead close tohim, he seized his bayonet, and forced it into his ownneck; but this not dispatching him, he raised up hiscuirass, and plunging the bayonet into his stomach, keptworking it about till he ceased to breathe.“Though we constantly thrashed our steel-cladopponents, we found more troublesome customers in theround shot and grape, which all this time played on uswith terrible effect, and fully avenged thecuirassiers. Often as the volleys created openings inour square would the cavalry dash on, but they were






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uniformly unsuccessful. A regiment on our right seemedsadly disconcerted, and at one moment was inconsiderable confusion. Halkett rode out to them, andseizing their color, waved it over his head, andrestored them to something like order, though not beforehis horse was shot under him. at the height of theirunsteadiness we got the order to ‘right face’ to moveto their assistance; some of the men mistook it for‘right about face,’ and faced accordingly, when oldMajor M’Laine, 73rd, called out, ‘No, my boys, it’s“right face;” you’ll never hear the right about as longas a French. bayonet is in front of you!’ In a fewmoments he was mortally wounded. A regiment of lightDragoons, by their facings either the 16th or 23rd, cameup to our left and charged the cuirassiers. We cheeredeach other as they passed us; they did all they could,but were obliged to retire after a few minutes at thesaber. A body of Belgian cavalry advanced for the samepurpose, but, on passing our square, they stopped short.Our noble Halkett rode out to them and offered to chargeat their head; it was of no use; the Prince of Orangecame up and exhorted them to do their duty, but in vain.They hesitated till a few shots whizzed through them,when they turned about, and galloped like fury, or,rather, like fear. As they passed the right face of oursquare the men, irritated by their rascally conduct,unanimously took up their pieces and fired a volley intothem, and many a good fellow was destroyed so cowardly.’“The enemy’s cavalry were by this time nearly disposedof, and as they had discovered the inutility of theircharges, they commenced annoying us by a spirited andwell-directed carbine fire. While we were employed inthis manner it was impossible to see farther than thecolumns on our right and left, but I imagine most of thearmy was similarly situated: all the British and Germanswere doing their duty. About six o’clock I perceivedsome artillery trotting up our hill, which I knew bytheir caps to belong to the Imperial Guard. I had hardlymentioned this to a brother officer when two gunsunlimbered within seventy paces of us, and, by theirfirst discharge of grape, blew seven men into the centerof the square. They immediately reloaded, and kept up aconstant and destructive fire. It was noble to see ourfellows fill up the gaps after every discharge. I wasmuch distressed at this moment; having ordered up threeof my light bobs, they had hardly taken their stationwhen two Of them fell horribly lacerated. One of themlooked up in my face and uttered a sort of reproachfulgroan, and I involuntarily exclaimed, ‘I couldn’t helpit.’ We would willingly have charged these guns, but,had we deployed, the cavalry that flanked them wouldhave made an example of us.“The ‘vivida vis animi’ — the glow which fires one uponentering into action — had ceased; it was now to be seenwhich side had most bottom, and would stand killinglongest. The Duke visited us frequently at thismomentous period; he was coolness personified. As hecrossed the rear face of our square a shell fell amongst







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our grenadiers, and he checked his horse to see itseffect. Some men were blown to pieces by the explosion,and he merely stirred the rein of his charger,apparently as little concerned at their fate as at hisown danger. No leader ever possessed so fully theconfidence of his soldiery — wherever he appeared, amurmur of ‘silence — stand to your front — here’s theDuke,’ was heard through the column, and then all wassteady as on a parade. His aides-de-camp, ColonelsCanning and Gordon, fell near our square, and the formerdied within it. As he came near us late in the evening,Halkett rode out to him and represented our weak state,begging his Grace to afford us a little support. ‘It’simpossible, Halkett,’ said he. And our general replied,‘If so, sir, you may depend on the brigade to a man!All accounts of the battle show that the Duke was everpresent at each spot where danger seemed the mostpressing; inspiriting his men by a few homely and goodhumored words; and restraining their impatience to beled forward to attack in their turn. — “Hard poundingthis, gentlemen: we will try who can pound the longest;”was his remark to a battalion, on which the storm fromthe French guns was pouring with peculiar fury. Ridingup to one of the squares, which had been dreadfullyweakened, and against which a fresh attack of Frenchcavalry was coming, he called to them: “Stand firm, mylads; what will they say of this in England?” As he rodealong another part of the line where the men had forsome time been falling fast beneath the enemy’scannonade, without having any close fighting, a murmurreached his ear of natural eagerness to advance and dosomething more than stand still to be shot at. The Dukecalled to them: “Wait a little longer, my lads, and youshall have your wish.” The men were instantly satisfiedand steady. It was, indeed, indispensable for the Duketo bide his time. The premature movement of a singlecorps down from the British line of heights, would haveendangered the whole position, and have probably madeWaterloo a second Hastings.But the Duke inspired all under him with his own spiritof patient firmness. When other generals besidesHalkett sent to him, begging for reinforcements, or forleave to withdraw corps which were reduced to skeletonsthe answer was the same: “It is impossible; you musthold your ground to the last man, and all will be well.”He gave a similar reply to some of his staff, who askedinstructions from him, so that, in the event of hisfalling, his successor might follow out his plan. Heanswered, “My plan is simply to stand my ground here tothe last, man.” His personal danger was indeed imminentthroughout the day; and though he escaped without injuryto himself or horse, one only of his numerous staff wasequally fortunate.“As far as the French accounts would lead us to infer,it appears that the losses among Napoleon’s staff werecomparatively trifling. On this subject, perhaps themarked contrast afforded by the following anecdotes,which have been related to me on excellent authority,






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may tend to throw some light. At one period of thebattle, when the Duke was surrounded by several of hisstaff, it was very evident that the group had become theobject of the fire of a French battery. The shot fellfast about them, generally striking and turning up theground on which they stood. Their horses became restive,and ‘Copenhagen’ himself so fidgety, that the Duke,getting impatient, and having reasons for remaining onthe spot, said to those about him, ‘Gentlemen, we arerather too close together-better to divide a little.’subsequently. at another point of the line, an officerof artillery came up to the Duke, and stated that he hada distinct view of Napoleon, attended by his staff; thathe had the guns of his battery well pointed in thatdirection, and was prepared to fire. His Grace instantlyand emphatically exclaimed, ‘No! no! I’ll not allow it.It is not the business of commanders to be firing uponeach other.’" —Siberne, vol. ii. p. 363.

How different is this from Napoleon’s conduct at the battle ofDresden, when he personally directed the fire of the battery,which, as he thought, killed the Emperor Alexander, and actuallykilled Moreau.Napoleon had stationed himself during the battle on a littlehillock near La Belle Alliance, in the center of the Frenchposition. Here he was seated, with a large table from theneighboring farm-house before him, on which maps and plans werespread; and thence with his telescope he surveyed the variouspoints of the field. Soult watched his orders close at his lefthand, and his staff was grouped on horseback a few paces in therear. [Ouvrard, who attended Napoleon as chief commissary of theFrench army on that occasion told me that Napoleon was sufferingfrom a complaint which made it very painful for him to ride.]Here he remained till near the close of the day, preserving theappearance at least of calmness, except some expressions ofirritation which escaped him, when Ney’s attack on the Britishleft center was defeated. But now that the crisis of the battlewas evidently approaching, he mounted a white Persian charger,which he rode in action because the troops easily recognized himby the horse’s color. He had still the means of effecting aretreat. His Old Guard had yet taken no part in the action. Undercover of it, he might have withdrawn his shattered forces andretired upon the French frontier. But this would only have giventhe English and Prussians the opportunity of completing theirjunction; and he knew that other armies were fast coming up toaid them in a march upon Paris, if he should succeed in avoidingan encounter with them, and retreating upon the capital. Avictory at Waterloo was his only alternative from utter ruin,and he determined to employ his Guard in one bold stroke moreto make that victory- his own.Between seven and eight o’clock, the infantry of the Old Guardwas formed into two columns, on the declivity near La BelieAlliance. Ney was placed at their head. Napoleon himself rodeforward to a spot by which his veterans were to pass; and, asthey approached, he raised his arm, and pointed to the positionof the Allies, as if to tell them that their path lay there.‘they answered with loud cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” anddescended the hill from their own side, into that “valley of theshadow of death,” while the batteries thundered with redoubled







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vigor over their heads upon the British line. The line of marchof the columns of the Guard was directed between Hougoumont andLa Haye Sainte, against the British right center; and at thesame time the French under Donzelot, who had possession of LaHaye Sainte, commenced a fierce attack upon the British center,a little more to its left. This part of the battle has drawnless attention than the celebrated attack of the Old Guard; butit formed the most perilous crisis for the allied army; and ifthe Young Guard had been there to support Donzelot, instead ofbeing engaged with the Prussians at Planchenoit, theconsequences to the Allies in that part of the field must havebeen most serious. The French tirailleurs, who were posted inclouds in La Haye Sainte, and the sheltered spots near it, pickedoff the artillerymen of the English batteries near them: and,taking advantage of the disabled state of the English guns, theFrench brought some field-pieces up to La Haye Sainte, andcommenced firing grape from them on the infantry of the Allies,at a distance of not more than a hundred paces. The alliedinfantry here consisted of some German brigades, who were formedin squares, as it was believed that Donzelot had cavalry readybehind La Haye Sainte to charge them with, if they left thatorder of formation. In this state the Germans remained for sometime with heroic fortitude, though the grapeshot was tearinggaps in their ranks, and the side of one square was literallyblown away by one tremendous volley which the French gunnerspoured into it. The Prince of Orange in vain endeavored to leadsome Nassau troops to the aid of the brave Germans. The Nassauerswould not or could not face the French; and some battalions ofBrunswickers, whom the Duke of Wellington had ordered up as areinforcement, at first fell back, until the Duke in personrallied them, and led them on. Having thus barred the fartheradvance of Donzelot, the Duke galloped off to the right to headhis men who were exposed to the attack of the Imperial Guard.He had saved one part of his center from being routed; but theFrench had gained ground and kept it; and the pressure on theAllied line in front of La Haye Sainte, was fearfully severe,until it; was relieved by the decisive success which the Britishin the right center achieved over the columns of the Guard.The British troops on the crest of that part of the position,which the first column of Napoleon’s Guards assailed, wereMaitland’s brigade of British Guards, having Adam’s brigade(which had been brought forward during the action) on theirright. Maitland’s men were lying down, in order to avoid as faras possible the destructive effect of the French artillery,which kept up an unremitting fire from the opposite heights,until the first column of the Imperial Guard had advanced so farup the slope towards the British position, that any furtherfiring of the French artillerymen would have endangered theirown comrades. Meanwhile the British guns were not idle; but shotand shell ploughed fast through the ranks of the stately arrayof veterans that still moved imposingly on. Several of theFrench superior officers were at its head. Ney’s horse was shotunder him, but he still led the way on foot, sword in hand. Thefront of the massive column now was on the ridge of the hill.To their surprise they saw no troops before them. All they coulddiscern through the smoke was a small band of mounted officers.One of them was the Duke himself. The French advanced to aboutfifty yards frost where the British Guards were lying down, when






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the voice of one of the group of British officers was heardcalling, as if to the ground before him, “Up, Guards, and atthem!” It was the Duke who gave the order; and at the words, asif by magic, up started before them a line of the British Guardsfour deep, and in the most compact and perfect order. They pouredan instantaneous volley upon the head of the French column, bywhich no less than three hundred of those chosen veterans aresaid to have fallen. The French officers rushed forwards; and,conspicuous in front of their men, attempted to deploy them intoa more extended line, so as to enable them to reply with effectto the British fire. But Maitland’s brigade kept showering involley after volley with deadly rapidity. The decimated columngrew disordered in its vain efforts to expand itself into a moreefficient formation. The right word was given at the rightmoment to the British for the bayonet-charge, and the brigadesprang forward with a loud cheer against their dismayedantagonists. In an instant the compact mass of the French spreadout into a rabble, and they fled back down the hill, pursued byMaitland’s men, who, however, returned to their position in timeto take part in the repulse of the second column of the ImperialGuard.This column also advanced with great spirit and firmness underthe cannonade which was opened on it; and passing by the easternwall of Hougoumont, diverged slightly to the right as it movedup the slope towards the British position, so as to approachnearly the same spot where the first column had surmounted theheight, and been defeated. This enabled the British regimentsof Adam’s brigade to form a line parallel to the left flank ofthe French column; so that while the front of this column ofFrench Guards had to encounter the cannonade of the Britishbatteries, and the musketry of Maitland’s Guards, its left flankwas assailed with a destructive fire by a four-deep body ofBritish infantry, ex-tending all along it. In such a positionall the bravery and skill of the French veterans were vain. Thesecond column, like its predecessor, broke and fled taking atfirst a lateral direction along the front of the British linetowards the rear of La Haye Sainte, and so becoming blended withthe divisions of French infantry, which under Donzelot had beenassailing the Allies so formidably in that quarter. The sightof the Old Guard broken and in flight checked the ardor whichDonzelot’s troops had hitherto displayed. They, too, began towaver. Adam’s victorious brigade was pressing after the flyingGuard, and now cleared away the assailants of the allied center.But the battle was not yet won Napoleon had still some battalionsin reserve near La Belle Alliance. He was rapidly rallying theremains of the first column of his Guards, and he had collectedinto one body the remnants of the various corps of cavalry, whichhad suffered so severely in the earlier part of the day. TheDuke instantly formed the bold resolution of now himselfbecoming the assailant, and leading his successful thoughenfeebled army forward, while the disheartening effect of therepulse of the Imperial Guard on the rest of the French army wasstill strong, and before Napoleon and Ney could rally the beatenveterans themselves for another and a fiercer charge. As theclose approach of the Prussians now completely protected theDuke’s left, he had drawn some reserves of horse from thatquarter, and he had a brigade of Hussars under Vivian fresh andready at hand. Without a moment’s hesitation he launched these







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against the cavalry near La Belie Alliance. The charge was assuccessful as it was daring: and as there was now no hostilecavalry to check the British infantry in a forward movement, theDuke gave the long-wished-for command for a general advance ofthe army along the whole line upon the foe. It was now past eighto’clock, and for nearly nine deadly hours had the British andGerman regiments stood unflinching under the fire of artillery,the charge of cavalry, and every variety of assault, which thecompact columns or the scattered tirailleurs of the enemy’sinfantry could inflict. As they joyously sprang forward againstthe discomfited masses of the French, the setting sun brokethrough the clouds which had obscured the sky during the greaterpart of the day, and glittered on the bayonets of the Allies,while they poured down into the valley and towards the heightsthat were held by the foe. The Duke himself was among theforemost in the advance, and personally directed the movementsagainst each body of the French that essayed resistance. He rodein front of Adam’s brigade, cheering it forward, and evengalloped among the most advanced of the British skirmishers,speaking joyously to the men, and receiving their hearty shoutsof congratulation, The bullets of both friends and foes werewhistling fast round him; and one of the-few survivors of hisstaff remonstrated with him for thus exposing a life of suchvalue. “Never mind,” was the Duke’s answer; — “Never mind, letthem fire away; the battle’s won, and my life is of noconsequence now.” And, indeed, almost the whole of the Frenchhost was now in irreparable confusion. The Prussian army wascoming more and more rapidly forwards on their right; and theYoung Guard, which had held Planchenoit so bravely, was at lastcompelled to give way. Some regiments of the Old Guard in vainendeavored to form in squares and stem the current. They wereswept away, and wrecked among the waves of the flyers. Napoleonhad placed himself in one of these squares: Marshal Soult,Generals Bertrand, Drouot, Corbineau, De Flahaut, and Gourgaud,were with him. The Emperor spoke of dying on the field, but Soultseized his bridle and turned his charger round, exclaiming,“Sire, are not the enemy already lucky enough?” [The Colonelstates that lie heard these details from General Gourgaudhimself The English reader will be reminded of Charles I’sretreat from Naseby.] With the greatest difficulty, and only bythe utmost exertion of the devoted officers round him, Napoleoncleared the throng of fugitives, and escaped from the scene ofthe battle and the war, which he and France had lost past allrecovery, Meanwhile the Duke of Wellington still rode forwardwith the van of his victorious troops, until he reined up on theelevated ground near Rossormne. The daylight was now entirelygone; but the young moon had risen, and the light which it cast,aided by the glare from the burning houses and other buildingsin the line of the flying French and pursuing Prussians, enabledthe Duke to assure himself that his victory was complete. Hethen rode back along the Charleroi road toward Waterloo: andnear La Belie Alliance he met Marshal Blucher. Warm were thecongratulations that were exchanged between the Allied Chiefs.It was arranged that the Prussians should follow up the pursuitand give the French no chance of rallying. Accordingly theBritish army, exhausted by its toils and suffering during thatdreadful day, did not advance beyond the heights which the enemyhad occupied. But the Prussians drove the fugitives before them






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in merciless chase throughout the night. Cannon, baggage, andall the materiel of the army were abandoned by the French andmany thousands of the infantry threw away then arms tofacilitate their escape. The ground was strewn for miles withthe wrecks of their host. There was no rear-guard; nor was eventhe semblance of order attempted. An attempt at resistance wasmade at the bridge and village of Genappe, the first narrow passthrough which the bulk of the French retired. The situation wasfavorable; and a few resolute battalions if ably commanded,might have held their pursuers at bay there for someconsiderable time. But despair and panic were now universal inthe beaten army At the first sound of the Prussian drums andbugles, Genappe was abandoned; and nothing thought of butheadlong flight. The Prussians, under General Gneisenau, stillfollowed and still slew; nor even when the Prussian infantrystopped in sheer exhaustion, was the pursuit given up. Gneisenaustill pushed on with the cavalry; and by an ingenious stratagem,made the French believe that his infantry were still close onthem, and scared them from every spot where they attempted topause and rest. He mounted one of his drummers on a horse whichhad been taken from the captured carriage of Napoleon, and madehim ride along with the pursuing cavalry, and beat the drumwhenever they came on any large number of the French. The Frenchthus fled, and the Prussians pursued through Quatre Bras, andeven over the heights of Frasne; and when at length Gneisenaudrew bridle, and halted a little beyond Frasne with the scantyremnant of keen hunters who had kept up the chase with him tothe last, the French were scattered through Gosselies,Marchiennes, and Charleroi; and were striving to regain the leftbank of the river Sambre, which they had crossed in such pompand pride not a hundred hours before.Part of the French left wing endeavored to escape from the fieldwithout blending with the main body of the fugitives whothronged the Genappe causeway. A French officer, who was amongthose who thus retreated across the country westward of thehigh-road, has vividly described what he witnessed and what hesuffered. Colonel Lemonnier Delafosse served in the campaign of1815 in General Foy’s staff; and was consequently in that partof the French army at Waterloo, which acted against Hougoumontand the British right wing. When the column of the Imperial Guardmade their great charge at the end of the day, the troops ofFoy’s division advanced in support of them, and ColonelLemonnier Delafosse describes the confident hopes of victory andpromotion with which he marched to that attack, and the fearfulcarnage and confusion of the assailants, amid which he washelplessly hurried back by his flying comrades. He then narratesthe closing scene:“Near one of the hedges of Hougoumont farm without even a drummerto beat the rappel, we succeeded in rallying under the enemy’sfire 300 men: the were nearly all that remained of our splendiddivision. Thither came together a band of generals. There wasReille, whose horse had been shot under him; there we D’Erlon,Bachelu, Foy, Jamin, and others. All we gloomy and sorrowful,like vanquished men. The words were, — ‘Here is all that is leftof my corps, my division, of my brigade. I, myself.’ We had seenthe fall of Duhesme, of Pelet-de-Morvan, of Michel — generalswho had found a glorious death. My General Foy, had his shoulderpierced through by a musket-ball and out of his whole staff two







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officers only were left to him, Cahour Duhay and I. Fate hadspared me in the midst of so many dangers, though the firstcharger I rode had been shot and had fallen on me.“The enemy’s horse were coming down on us, and our little groupwas obliged to retreat. What had happened to our division of theleft wing had taken place all along the line. The movement ofthe hostile cavalry which inundated the whole plain, haddemoralized our soldiers, who seeing all regular retreat of thearmy cut off, strove each man to effect one for himself. At eachinstant the road became more encumbered. Infantry, cavalry, andartillery, were pressing along pell-mell jammed together like asolid mass. Figure to yourself 40,000 men struggling andthrusting themselves along a single causeway. We could not takethat way without destruction; so the generals who had collectedtogether near the Hougoumont hedge dispersed across the fields.General Foy alone remained with the 300, men whom he had gleanedfrom the field of battle, and marched at their head. Our anxietywas to withdraw from the scene of action without beingconfounded with the fugitives. Our general wished to retreatlike a true soldier. Seeing three lights in the southernhorizon, like beacons, General Foy asked me what I thought ofthe position of each. I answered ‘The first to the left isGenappe, the second is at Bois-de-Bossu, near the farm of QuatreBras; the third is at Gosselies.’ ‘Let us march on tire secondone, then,’ replied Foy, ‘and let no obstacle stop us — take thehead of the column, and do not lose sight of the guiding light.’Such was his order, and I strove to obey.“After all the agitation and the incessant din of a long day ofbattle, how imposing was the stillness of that night! Weproceeded on our sad and lonely march. We were a prey to themost cruel reflections, we: were humiliated, we were hopeless;but not a word of complaint was heard. We walked silently as atroop of mourners, and it might have been said that we wereattending the funeral of our country’s glory. Suddenly thatstillness was broken by a challenge,— ‘Qui vive?’ ‘France!’‘Kellerman!’ ‘Foy!’ ‘Is it you, General? come nearer to us.’ Atthat moment we were passing ever a little hillock, at the footof which was a hut, in which Kellerman and some of his officershad halted. They came out to join us. Foy said to me, ‘Kellermanknows the country: he has been along here before with hiscavalry; we had better follow him.’ But we found that thedirection which Kellerman chose was towards the first light,towards Genappe. That led to the causeway which our generalrightly wished to avoid. I went to the left to reconnoiter, andwas soon convinced that such was the case. It was then that Iwas able to form a full idea of the disorder of a routed army.What a hideous spectacle! The mountain torrent, that uproots andwhirls along with it every momentary obstacle, is a feeble imageof that heap of men, of horses, of equipages, rushing one uponanother; gathering before the least obstacle which dams up theirway for a few seconds, only to form a mass which overthrowseverything in the path which it forces for itself. Woe to himwhose footing failed him in that deluge! He was crushed,trampled to death! I returned and told my general what I hadseen, and he instantly abandoned Kellerman, and resumed hisoriginal line of march.“Keeping straight across the country over fields and the roughthickets, we at last arrived at the Bois-de-Bossu, where we






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halted. My General said to me, ‘Go to the farm of Quatre Brasand announce that we are here. The Emperor or Soult must bethere. Ask for orders, and recollect that I am waiting here foryou. The lives of these men depend on your exactness.’ To reachthe farm I was obliged to cross the high road: I was onhorseback, but nevertheless was borne away by the crowd thatfled along the road, and it was long ere I could extricate myselfand reach the farmhouse. General Lobau was there with his staff,resting in fancied security. They thought that their troops hadhalted there; but, though a halt had been attempted, the men hadsoon fled forwards, like their comrades of the rest of the army.The shots of the approaching Prussians were now heard; and Ibelieve that General Lobau was taken prisoner in that farmhouse.I left him to rejoin my general, which I did with difficulty. Ifound him alone. His men, as they came near the current offlight, were infected with the general panic, and fled also.“What was to be done? Follow that crowd of run aways General Foywould not hear of it. There were five of us still with him, allofficers. He had been wounded at about five in the afternoon,and the wound had not been dressed. He suffered severely; buthis moral courage was unbroken. ‘Let us keep,’ he said, ‘a lineparallel to the high road, and work our way hence as we bestcan.’ A foot-track was before us, and we followed it.“The moon shone out brightly, and revealed the full wretchednessof the tableau which met our eyes. A brigadier and four cavalrysoldiers, whom we met with, formed our escort. We marched on;and, as the noise grew more distant, I thought that we werelosing the parallel of the high way. Finding that we had themoon more and more on the left, I felt sure of this, andmentioned it to the General. Absorbed in thought, he made me noreply. We came in front of a windmill, and endeavored to procuresome information; but we could not gain an entrance, or make anyone answer, and we continued our nocturnal march. At last weentered a village, but found every door closed against us, andwere obliged to use threats in order to grain admission into asingle house. The poor woman to whom it belonged, more dead thanalive, received us as if we had been enemies. Before asking wherewe were, ‘Food, give us some food!’ was our cry. Bread and butterand beer were brought, and soon disappeared before men who hadfasted for twenty-four hours. A little revived, we ask, ‘Whereare we? What is the name of this village?’ ‘Vieville.’“On looking at the map, I saw that in coming to that village wehad leaned too much to the right, and that we were in thedirection of Mons. In order to reach the Sambre at the bridgeof Marchiennes, we had four leagues to traverse; and there wasscarcely time to march the distance before daybreak. I made avillager act as our guide, and bound him by his arm to mystirrup. He led us through Roux to Marchiennes. The poor fellowran alongside of my horse the whole way. It was cruel, butnecessary to compel him, for we had not an instant to spare. Atsix in the morning we entered Marchiennes.“Marshal Ney was there. Our general went to see him, and to askwhat orders he had to give. Ney was asleep; and, rather than robhim of the first repose he had had for four days, our Generalreturned to us without seeing him. And, indeed, what orderscould Marshal Ney have given? The whole army was crossing theSambre, each man where and how he chose; some at Charleroi, someat Marchiennes. We were about to do the same thing. When once







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beyond the Sambre we might safely halt; and both men and horseswere in extreme need of rest. We passed through Thuin; andfinding a little copse near the road, we gladly sought itsshelter. While our horses grazed, we lay down and slept. Howsweet was that sleep after the fatigues of the long day ofbattle, and after the night of retreat more painful still! Werested in the little copse till noon, and sat there watching thewrecks of our army defile along the road before us. It was asoul-harrowing sight! Yet the different arms of the service hadresumed a certain degree of order amid their disorder; and ourGeneral, feeling his strength revive, resolved to follow astrong column of cavalry which was taking the direction ofBeaumont, about four leagues off: We drew near Beaumont, whensuddenly a regiment of horse was seen debauching from a wood onour left. The column that we followed shouted out, ‘ThePrussians! The Prussians!’ and galloped off in utter disorder.The troops that thus alarmed them were not a tenth part of theirnumber, and were in reality our own 8th Hussars, who wore greenuniforms. But the panic had been brought even thus far from thebattle-field, and the disorganized column galloped intoBeaumont, which was already crowded with our infantry. We wereobliged to follow that debacle. On entering Beaumont we chose ahouse of superior appearance, and demanded of the mistress ofit refreshments for the General. ‘Alas!’ said the lady, ‘thisis the tenth General who has been to this house since thismorning. I have nothing left, Search, if you please, and see.Though unable to find food for the General, I persuaded him totake his coat off and let me examine his wound. The bullet hadgone through the twists of the left epaulette, and penetratingthe skin had run round the shoulder without injuring the bone.The lady of the house made some lint for me; and without anygreat degree of surgical skill I succeeded in dressing thewound.“Being still anxious to procure some food for the General andourselves, if it were but a loaf of ammunition bread, I left thehouse and rode out into the town. I saw pillage going on in everydirection: open caissons, stripped and half-broken, blocked upthe streets. The pavement was covered with plundered and tornbaggage. Pillagers and runaways, such were all the comrades Imet with. Disgusted at them, I strove, sword in hand, to stopone of the plunderers; but, more active than I, he gave me a,bayonet stab in my left arm, in which I fortunately caught histhrust, which had been aimed full at my body. He disappearedamong the crowd, through which I could not force my horse. Myspirit of discipline had made me forget that in suchcircumstances the soldier is a mere wild beast. But to be woundedby a fellow-countryman after having passed unharmed through allthe perils of Quatre Bras and Waterloo! — this did seem hard,indeed. I was trying to return to General Foy, when another hordeof flyers burst into Beaumont, swept me into the current of theirflight, and hurried me out of the town with them. Until Ireceived my wound I had preserved my moral courage in full force;but now, worn out with fatigue, covered with blood and sufferingsevere rain from the wound, I own that I gave way to the generaldemoralization, and let myself be inertly borne along with therushing mass. At last I reached Landrecies, though I know nothow or when. But I found there our Colonel Hurday, who had beenleft behind there in consequence of an accidental injury from a






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carriage. He took me with him to Paris, where I retired amid myfamily, and got cured of my wound, knowing nothing of the restof political and military events that were taking place.”No returns ever were made of the amount of the French loss inthe battle of Waterloo; but it must have been immense, and maybe partially judged of by the amount of killed and wounded inthe armies of the conquerors. On this subject both the Prussianand British official evidence is unquestionably full andauthentic. The figures are terribly emphatic.Of the army that fought under the Duke of Wellington nearly15,000 men mere killed and wounded on this single day of battle.Seven thousand Prussians also fell at Waterloo. At such afearful price was the deliverance of Europe purchased.By none was the severity of that loss more keenly felt than byour great deliverer himself. As may be seen in Major Macready’snarrative, the Duke, while the battle was raging, betrayed nosign of emotion at the most ghastly casualties; but, when allwas over, the sight of the carnage with which the field wascovered, anti still more, the sickening spectacle of the agoniesof the wounded men who lay moaning in their misery by thousandsand tens of thousands, weighed heavily on the spirit of thevictor, as he rode back across the scene of strife. On reachinghis head-quarters in the village of Waterloo, the Duke inquiredanxiously after the numerous friends who had been round him inthe morning, and to whom he was warmly attached. Many he wastold were dead; others were lying alive, but mangled andsuffering, in the houses round him. It is in our hero’s own wordsalone that his feelings can be adequately told. In a letterwritten by him almost immediately after his return from thefield, he thus expressed himself: — “My heart is broken by theterrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions,and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost,can be half so melancholy as a battle won, the bravery of mytroops has hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to -winsuch a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expense of so manygallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but forthe result to the public.”It is not often that a successful General in modern warfare iscalled on, like the victorious commander of the ancient Greekarmies, to award a prize of superior valor to one of hissoldiers. Such was to some extent. the case with respect to thebattle of Waterloo. In the August of 1818, an English clergymanoffered to confer a small annuity on some Waterloo soldier, tobe named by the Duke. The Duke requested Sir John Byng to choosea man from the 2nd Brigade of Guards, which had so highlydistinguished itself in the defense of Hougoumont. There weremany gallant candidates, but the election fell on Sergeant JamesGraham, of the light company of the Coldstream. This brave manhad signalized himself, throughout the day, in the defense ofthat important post, and especially in the critical strugglethat took place at. the period when the French, who had gainedthe wood, the orchard, and detached garden, succeeded inbursting open a gate of the courtyard of the chateau itself, andrushed in in large masses, confident of carrying all beforethem. A hand-to-hand fight, of the most desperate character, waskept up between them and the Guards for a few minutes; but atlast the British bayonets prevailed, Nearly all the Frenchmenwho had forced their way in were killed on the spot; and, as the







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few survivors ran back, five of the Guards, Colonel Macdonnell,Captain Wyndham, Ensign Gooch, Ensign Hervey, and SergeantGraham, by sheer strength, closed the gate again, in spite ofthe efforts of the French from without, and effectuallybarricaded it against further assaults. Over and through theloopholed wall of the courtyard, the English garrison now keptup a deadly fire of musketry, which was fiercely answered by theFrench, who swarmed round the curtilage like ravening wolves.Shells, too, from their batteries, were falling fast into thebesieged place, one of which set part of the mansion and someof the out-buildings on fire. Graham, who was at this timestanding near Colonel Macdonnell at the wall, and who had shownthe most perfect steadiness and courage, now asked permissionof his commanding officer to retire for a moment. Macdonnellreplied, “By all means, Graham; but I wonder you should ask leavenow.” Graham answered, “I would not, sir, only my brother iswounded, and he is in that out-building there, which has justcaught fire.” Laying down his musket, Graham ran to the blazingspot, lifted up his brother, and laid him in a ditch. Then hewas back at his post, and was plying his musket against theFrench again, before his absence was noticed, except by hiscolonel.Many anecdotes of individual prowess have been preserved: butof all the brave men who were in the British army on thateventful day, none deserve more honor for courage andindomitable resolution than Sir Thomas Picton, who, as has beenmentioned, fell in repulsing the great attack of the French uponthe British left center. It was not until the dead body wasexamined after the battle, that the full heroism of Picton wasdiscerned. He had been wounded on the 16th, at Quatre Bras, bya musket-ball, which had broken two of his ribs, and caused alsosevere internal injuries; but he had concealed the circumstance,evidently in expectation that another and greater battle wouldbe fought in a short time, and desirous to avoid being solicitedto absent himself from the: field. His body was blackened andswollen by the wound, which must have caused severe andincessant pain; and it was marvelous how his spirit had bornehim up, and enabled him to take part in the fatigues and dutiesof the field. The bullet which, on the 18th, killed the renownedleader of “the Fighting Division” of the Peninsula, entered thehead near the left temple, and passed through the brain; so thatPicton’s death must have been instantaneous.One of the most interesting narratives of personal adventure atWaterloo, is that of Colonel Frederick Ponsonby, of the 12thLight Dragoons, who was severely wounded when Vandeleur’sbrigade, to which he belonged, attacked the French lancers, inorder to bring off the Union Brigade, which was retiring fromits memorable charge. The 12th, like those whom they rescued,advanced much further against the French position than prudencewarranted. Ponsonby, with many others, was speared by a reserveof Polish lancers, and left for dead on the field. It is wellto refer to the description of what he suffered (as he afterwardsgave it, when almost miraculously recovered from his numerouswounds), because his fate, or worse, was the fate of thousandsmore; and because the narrative of the pangs of an individual,with whom we can identify ourselves, always comes more home tous than a general description of the miseries of whole masses.His tale may make us remember what are the horrors of war as






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well as its glories. It is to be remembered that the operations,which he refers to, took place about three o’clock in the day,and that the fighting went on for at least five hours more.,Afterdescribing how he and his men charged through the French whomthey first encountered, and went against other enemies, hestates:—“We had no sooner passed them than we were ourselves attacked,before we could form, by about. 300 Polish lancers, who hadhastened to their relief the French artillery pouring in amongus a heavy fire of grape, though for one of our men they killedthree of their own. “In the melee I was almost instantly disabledin both arms, losing first my sword, and then my reins, andfollowed by a few men, who were presently cut down, no quarterbeing allowed, asked, or given, I was carried along by my horse,till, receiving a blow from a saber, I fell senseless on my faceto the ground.“Recovering, I raised myself a little to look round, being atthat time, I believe, in a condition to get up and run away;when a lancer passing by, cried out, ‘Tu n’est pas mort, coquin!’and struck his lance through my back. My head dropped, the bloodgushed into my mouth, a difficulty of breathing came on, and Ithought all was over.“Not long afterwards (it was impossible to measure time, but Imust have fallen in less than ten minutes after the onset), atirailleur stopped to plunder me, threatening my life. Idirected him to a small sidepocket, in which he found threedollars, all I had; but he continued to threaten, and I said hemight search me: this he did immediately, unloosing my stock andtearing open my waistcoat, and leaving me in a very uneasyposture.“But he, was no sooner gone, than an officer bringing up sometroops, to which probably the tirailleur belonged, and happeningto halt where I lay, stooped down and addressed me, saying, hefeared I was badly wounded; I said that I was, and expressed awish to be removed to the rear. He said it was against theirorders to remove even their own men; but that if they gained theday (and he understood that the Duke of Wellington was killed,and that some of our battalions had surrendered), everyattention in his power would be shown me. I complained of thirst,and he held his brandy bottle to my lips, directing one of thesoldiers to lay me straight on my side, and place a knapsackunder my head. He then passed on into action — soon, perhaps,to want, though not receive, the same assistance; and I shallnever know to whose generosity I was indebted, as I believe, formy life. Of what rank he was, I cannot say: he wore a great coat.By-and-by another tirailleur came up, a fine young man, full ofardor. He knelt down, and fired over me, loading and firing manytimes, and conversing with me all the while. “The Frenchman withstrange coolness, informed Ponsonby of how he was shooting, andwhat he thought of the progress of the battle. “At last he ranoff, exclaiming, ‘You will probably not be sorry to hear thatwe are going to retreat. Good day, my friend.’ It was dusk,”Ponsonby adds, “when two squadrons of Prussian cavalry, each ofthem two deep, came across the valley, and passed over me infull trot, lifting me from the ground, and tumbling me aboutcruelly. The clatter of their approach, and the apprehensionsthey excited, may be imagined; a gun taking that direction musthave destroyed me.







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“The battle was now at an end, or removed to a distance. Theshouts, the imprecations, the outcries of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ thedischarge of musketry and cannon, were over; and the groans ofthe wounded all around me, became every moment more and moreaudible. I thought the night would never end. Much about this time I found a soldier of the Royals lyingacross my legs: he had probably crawled thither in his agony;and his weight, his convulsive motions, and the air issuingthrough a wound in his side, distressed me greatly; the lastcircumstance most of all, as I had a wound of the same naturemyself.“It was not a dark night, and the Prussians were wandering aboutto plunder; the scene in Ferdinand Count Fathom came into mymind, though no women appeared. Several stragglers looked at me,as they passed by, one after another, and at last one of themstopped to examine me. I told him as well as I could, for I spokeGerman very imperfectly, that I was a British officer, and hadbeen plundered already; he did not desist, however, and pulledme about roughly.“An hour before midnight I saw a man in an English uniformwalking towards me. He was, I suspect, on the same errand, andhe came and looked in my face. I spoke instantly, telling himwho I was, and assuring him of a reward if he would remain byme. He said he belonged to the 40th, and had missed his regiment:he released me from the dying soldier, and being unarmed, tookup a sword from the ground, and stood over me, pacing backwardsand forwards.“Day broke; and at six o’clock in the morning some English wereseen at a distance, and he ran to them. A messenger being sentoff to Hervey, a cart came for me, and I was placed in it, andcarried to the village of Waterloo, a mile and a half off, andlaid in the bed from which, as I understood afterwards, Gordonhad been just carried out. I had received seven wounds: a surgeonslept in my room, and I was saved by excessive bleeding.”Major Macready, in the journal already cited, justly praises thedeep devotion to their Emperor which marked the French atWaterloo. Never, indeed, had the national bravery of the Frenchpeople been more nobly shown. One soldier in the French rankswas seen, when his arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrenchit off with the other; and throwing it up in the air, heexclaimed to his comrades, “Vive l’Empereur jusqu’a la mort!”Colonel Lemonnier Delafosse mentions in his Memoirs, that at thebeginning of the action, a French soldier who had had both legscarried off by a cannon-ball, was borne past the front of Foy’sdivision, and called out to them, “Ce n’est rien, camarades;Vive 1’Empereur! Gloire a la France!” The same officer, at theend of the battle, when all hope was lost, tells us that he sawa French grenadier, blackened with powder, and with his clothestorn and stained, leaning on his musket, and immovable as astatue. The colonel called to him to join his comrades andretreat; but the grenadier showed him his musket and his hands;and said “These hands have with this musket used to-day morethan twenty packets of cartridges: it was more than my share: Isupplied myself with ammunition from the dead. Leave me to diehere on the held of battle. It is not courage that fails me, butstrength.” Then, as Colonel Delafosse left him, the soldierstretched himself on the ground to meet his fate, exclaiming,“Tout est perdu! Pauvre France!” The gallantry of the French






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officers at least equaled that of their men. Ney, in particular,set the example of the most daring courage. Here, as in everyFrench army in which he ever served or commanded, he was “lebrave des braves.” Throughout the day he was in the front of thebattle; and was one of the very last Frenchmen who quitted thefield. His horse was killed under him in the last attack madeon the English position; but he was seen on foot, his clothestorn with bullets, his face smirched with powder, striving,sword in hand, first to urge his men forward, and at last tocheck their flight.There was another brave general of the French army, whose velourand good conduct on that day of disaster to his nation, shouldnever be unnoticed, when the story of Waterloo is recounted.This was General Pelet, who, about seven in the evening, led thefirst battalion of the 2nd regiment of the Chasseurs of the Guardto the defense of Planchenoit; and on whom Napoleon personallyurged the deep importance of maintaining possession of thatvillage. Pelet and his men took their post in the central partof the village, and occupied the church and churchyard in greatstrength. There they repelled every assault of the Prussians,who in rapidly increasing numbers rushed forward with infuriatedpertinacity. They held their post till the utter rout of themain army of their comrades was apparent, and the victoriousallies were thronging around Planchenoit. Then Pelet and hisbrave chasseurs quitted the churchyard, and retired with steadymarch, though they suffered fearfully from the moment they lefttheir shelter, and Prussian cavalry as well as infantry dashedfiercely after them. Pelet kept together a little knot of 250veterans, and had the eagle covered over, and borne along in themidst of them. At one time the inequality of the ground causedhis ranks to open a little; and in an instant, the Prussianhorsemen were on them, and striving to capture the eagle.Captain Siborne relates the conduct of Pelet with the admirationworthy of one brave soldier for another:—

“Pelet, taking advantage of a spot of ground whichafforded them some degree of cover against the fire ofgrape by which they were constantly assailed, halted thestandard-bearer, and called out, “A moi, chasseurs!Sauvons l’aigle ou mourons autour d’elle!” Thechasseurs immediately pressed around him, forming whatis usually termed the rallying square, and, loweringtheir bayonets, succeeded in repulsing the charge ofcavalry. Some guns were then brought to bear upon them,and subsequently a brisk fire of musketry; butnotwithstanding the awful sacrifice which was thusoffered up in defense of their precious charge, theysucceeded in reaching the main line of retreat, favoredby the universal confusion, as also by the generalobscurity which now prevailed; and thus saved alike theeagle and the honor of the regiment.”

French writers do injustice to their own army and general, whenthey revive malignant calumnies against Wellington, and speakof his having blundered into victory. No blunderer could havesuccessfully encountered such troops as those of Napoleon, andunder such a leader. It is superfluous to cite against thesecavils the testimony which other continental critics have borneto the high military genius of our illustrious chief. I refer







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to one only, which is of peculiar value, on account of thequarter whence it comes. It is that of the great German writer,Niebuhr, whose accurate acquaintance with every important sceneof modern as well as ancient history was unparalleled: and whowas no mere pedant, but a man practically versed in active life,and had been personally acquainted with most of the leading menin the great events of the early part of this century. Niebuhr,in the passage which I allude to, after referring to the military“blunders” of Mithridates, Frederick the Great, Napoleon,Pyrrhus, and Hannibal, uses these remarkable words, “The Dukeof Wellington is, I believe, the: only general in whose conductof war we cannot discover any important mistake.” Not that itis to be supposed that the Duke’s merits were simply of anegative order, or that he was merely a cautious, phlegmaticgeneral, fit only for defensive warfare, as some recent Frenchhistorians have described him. Or the contrary, he was bold,even to audacity, when boldness was required.

“The intrepid advance and fight at Assaye, the crossingof the Douro, and the movement on Talavera in 1809, theadvance to Madrid and Burgos in 1812, the actions beforeBayonne in 1813, and the desperate stand made atWaterloo itself, when more tamely-prudent generalswould have retreated beyond Brussels, place this beyonda doubt.”

The overthrow of the French military power at Waterloo was socomplete, that the subsequent events of the brief campaign havelittle interest. Lamartine truly says: “This defeat left nothingundecided in future events, for victory had given judgment. Thewar began and ended in a single battle.” Napoleon himselfrecognized instantly and fully the deadly nature of the blowwhich had been dealt to his empire. In his flight from thebattle-field he first halted at Charleroi, but the approach ofthe pursuing Prussians drove him thence before he had restedthere an hour. With difficulty getting clear of the wrecks ofhis own army, he reached Philippeville, where he remained a fewhours, and sent orders to the French generals in the variousextremities of France, to converge with their troops upon Paris.He ordered Soult to collect the fugitives of his own force, andlead them to Laon. He then hurried forward to Paris, and reachedhis capital before the news of his own defeat. But the sterntruth soon transpired. At the demand of the Chambers of Peersand Representatives he abandoned the throne by a second andfinal abdication on the 22nd of June. On the 29th of June heleft the neighborhood of Paris, and proceeded to Rochefort inthe hope of escaping to America. But the coast was strictlywatched, and on the 15th of July the ex-emperor surrenderedhimself on board of the English man-of-war the Bellerophon.Meanwhile the allied armies had advanced steadily upon Parisdriving before them Grouchy’s corps, and the scanty force whichSoult had succeeded in rallying at Laon. Cambray, Peronne andother fortresses were speedily captured; and by the 29th of Junethe invaders were taking their positions in front of Paris. TheProvisional Government, which acted in the French capital afterthe emperor’s abdication, opened negotiations with the alliedchiefs. Blucher, in his quenchless hatred of the French, waseager to reject all proposals for a suspension of hostilities,and to assault and storm the city. But the sager and calmer






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spirit of Wellington prevailed over his colleague; the entreatedarmistice was granted; and on the 3rd of July the capitulationof Paris terminated the War of the Battle of Waterloo.In closing our observations on this the last of the DecisiveBattles of the World, it is pleasing to contrast the year whichit signalized with the year that is now [written in June 1851.]passing over our heads. We have not (and long may we be without)the stern excitement of martial strife, and we see no captivestandards of our European neighbors brought in triumph to ourshrines. But we behold an infinitely prouder spectacle. We seethe banners of every civilized nation waving over the arena ofour competition with each other, in the arts that minister toour race’s support and happiness, and destruction. not to itssuffering and

“Peace hath her Victories No less renowned than War;”

and no battle-field ever witnessed a victory more noble, thanthat, which England, under her Sovereign Lady and her RoyalPrince, is now teaching the peoples of the earth to achieve overselfish prejudices and international feuds, in the great causeof the general promotion of the industry and welfare of mankind.

“A victory described in detail is indistinguishable from a defeat.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre


1st day 18th of 6 M 1815 / Our morning meeting was large & I thought favor’d - Hannah Dennis appeard rather larger than usual for her & quite as sweet then D Buffum added by way of suppliment - In the Afternoon we were silent & to my feelings a solid & in a very good degree a devotional opportunity. I believe some minds were refreshed, & many who were not in membership wore countenances that bespoke reverence. — We took tea at Father Rodmans with Wm S Burling - & while we were there we heard that Wm Wright & his wife son of Isaac Wright of N York had arrived & knowing them to be acquainted to Uncle & Aunt Santon We went with Wm Burling to their lodgings & found them pleasant & agreeable friends. We invited them to tea with us tomorrow if I did not sail for NYork which I expect to do — I do a little regret the prospect of so soon leaving town on their account —

YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT EITHER THE REALITY OF TIME OVER THAT OF CHANGE, OR CHANGE OVER TIME — IT’S PARMENIDES, OR








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HERACLITUS. I HAVE GONE WITH HERACLITUS.

July 6, Thursday: The Duke of Wellington and Marshall Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst von Wahlstatt entered Paris at the head of their allied army. Blücher made a demand of the city leaders, for 100,000,000 francs plus new uniforms for all of his 110,000 troops. British Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh reached Paris to negotiate a 2d Peace of Paris.

John Wedderburn Halkett remarried, with Lady Katherine Douglas.


5th day 6th of 7th 1815 / Found ourselves this morng under Block Island & not far from Point Judith in a flat Calm & came to Anchor where we lay till near 11 OC when the Wind & tide favoring we made some headway - Amused ourselves with the Spy Glass in looking at Block Island & scenes around in Charleston — which with a little conversation with the Passengers & the prospect of being home tonight made the time not very tedious - In the course of this day made some acquaintance with Saml Dana of Cambridge & Echabod Goodwin of Berwick — At 2 OC Dined & at 1 / 4 before 3 OC turned Point Judith — At 3 OC by the Assistance of the Glass Saw the Steeples of Newport which soon became in full view - at the sight of which my heart LEAPS — At 1 / 2Past 4 OC Turned Beaver tail light at 6 OC Arrived Banisters Wharf & in a few minutes to my home where I found my beloved H & our little John both well & very glad to see me. — This with my safe return to them is cause of gratitude — In taking a retrospect of my visit this evening, it all looks pleasant & I feel thankful, that I have been - it may prove beneficial to me many ways — I have had but few advantages in seeing the World, this little jant may tend & I think has already tended to enlarge my view of men & things — There is an increasing body of Friends in NYork, & some considerable number of well concerned Members —but alass for the spirit of the World - which appears to me, must be very prevalent among them —

ONE COULD BE ELSEWHERE, AS ELSEWHERE DOES EXIST. ONE CANNOT BE ELSEWHEN SINCE ELSEWHEN DOES NOT.

(TO THE WILLING MANY THINGS CAN BE EXPLAINED,THAT FOR THE UNWILLING WILL REMAIN FOREVER MYSTERIOUS.)













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July 13, Thursday: Napoléon Bonaparte handed his sword to a British officer. Sez he:18

The British discovered a nude statue of Napoleon in the basement of the Louvre and carried it off: it would grace the home of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.19 From this point forward it would cost the British people over £400,000 per year to guard their “Themistocles,” but the man was history. When he died they would mutilate his corpse, and his penis, tagged “Little Piece of Human Flesh,” happens to be still in circulation in England, being passed from hand to hand at various classy big-city auctions.

(The wars of the 1800-1815 period had cost France alone about 1/60th of its male population, or about 500,000 young men. But Britain also had lost little pieces of human flesh here and there.)

With the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, Mme. Jeanne-Françoise-Julie-Adélaïde “Juliette” Récamier (Madame Récamier) was able to return to Paris and restart her famous salon, at which she received guests frequently while semi-reclining upon a piece of furniture, a backless daybed or couch, which would become known as a récamier in her honor:

18. This raises an interesting question. When did Themistocles throw himself upon the hospitality of the British people?19. This statue stands all of fifteen feet tall, exclusive of its pedestal. Well, but it must weigh a bit more than the Little General did even at the most corpulent stage of his old age, as well.

I come like Themistocles to throw myself upon thehospitality of the British people.

“And Amy, what is she going to do?” asked Mrs. March, well pleased at Laurie’s decision and the energy with which he spoke.

“After doing the civil all round, and airing our best bonnet, we shall astonish you by the elegant hospitalities of our mansion, the brilliant society we shall draw about us, and the beneficial influence we shall exert over the world at large. That’s about it, isn’t it, ‘Madame Récamier’?” asked Laurie with a quizzical look at Amy.

“Time will show. Come away, Impertinence, and don’t shock my family by calling me names before their faces,” answered Amy, resolving that there should be a home with a good wife in it before she set up a salon as a queen of society.




Comment by Napoleon "Themistocles" Bonaparte.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themistocles




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At her salon, which for a long period of time was held in her separate rented suite in an old Paris convent at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, one of the featured guests was her associate François-Auguste-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand. A painting by Jacques-Louis David hanging in the Louvre depicts Mme. Récamier semi-reclining on her récamier as a younger woman,20 as of 1800 before she had been exiled from Paris by

20. I’ve checked it out, and M. Chateaubriand does not appear in his own portrait eating one of the double-thick center cut of beef tenderloin, stuffed and braised, the dish named in his honor. Nor is he reclining on a récamier (the illustrated piece of furniture, named in her honor), or upon Mme. Récamier herself for that matter — he’s just relaxing in a comfortable pair of pants with mussy hair:






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Napoleon for her quasi-Royalist sentiments.

With the defeat of Bonaparte, a portion of the reform in Switzerland was canceled, and patricians regained decisive positions in Lucerne’s politics.


5th day 13 of 7 M / Rich Mott this morng appointed a Meeting for the inhabitants of the Town this Afternoon at 5 OC — He attended our Meeting in the course & delivered a short but Sound pertinent & very lively testimony — at the close his afternoon meeting was mentioned by D Buffum & general informations requested — He with his companion dined with us, their company was pleasant & gratifying — At the hour appointed a large number of people collected, several of the most respectable of inhabitants attended - among who were Wm Ellery Snr Wm Ellery Junr, Doct Mann. Christopher G Camplin, Benj Hazard, Doct Hazard Wm Hunter & Nath Hazard - Richard was much favored in his testimony his opening was “The Kingdom of God consisteth not in Meats or Drinks, but in







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Righteousness, peace & Joy in the Holy Ghost - this subject he handled well & his communication was attended with a remarkable degree of Life & Power, which drew the attention of people who sat very solidly & it appeared to me that Truth Reigned & the savor thereof spread over most minds present — he concluded in A very solemn & reverend supplication — All this was cause of rejoicing to many minds present. & it appears the Audience were well satisfied. —

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT IT IS MORTALS WHO CONSUME OUR HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS, FOR WHAT WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO DO IS EVADE THE RESTRICTIONS OF THE HUMAN LIFESPAN. (IMMORTALS,

WITH NOTHING TO LIVE FOR, TAKE NO HEED OF OUR STORIES.)

August 8, Tuesday: Napoléon Bonaparte became a prisoner under transportation, destined for the island of St. Helena that was just the right distance away from France.

Of course, the defeat at Waterloo, and the events that had followed, had brought an end to the Italian judicial career of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami.


3rd day 8 of 8 M 1815 / This afternoon I witnessed a solemn scene - I called in the latter part of the Afternoon to see Matthew Barker who has been a long time very low & in great distress & apparantly Dieing for several Days, about 20 Minutes after I went into the room the scene closed, his distress continuing till near the close — When he breathed his last my sensations exceeded any thing I ever felt on seeing any person depart from time, my whole frame was shaken — every day brings us all neaer to the like Awful period & every scene like this is a solemn warning to us. to have our minds prepared for the event. — for some time he has not been entirely rational - & when I saw him this morng & at the final close he was past sensing much for any










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thing but his distress — I staid & assisted in laying him out

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT











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February 11, Wednesday: A former French Army sergeant was unsuccessful in an attempt to kill the commander of allied occupation forces in France, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. A jury would acquit this man, named Cantillon (and eventually he would receive 10,000 francs from the will of Napoléon Bonaparte).

Publication of the Mass op.77 for chorus and orchestra by Johann Nepomuk Hummel was announced in the Wiener Zeitung.

THE AGE OF REASON WAS A PIPE DREAM, OR AT BEST A PROJECT.ACTUALLY, HUMANS HAVE ALMOST NO CLUE WHAT THEY ARE DOING, WHILE CREDITING THEIR OWN LIES ABOUT WHY THEY ARE DOING IT.

1818










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March 1, Monday: A symphony by Muzio Clementi was performed for the initial time, in London.

A colored engraving, “The Battle of Waterloo” by Alexander Sauerweid, was published in London by T. Clay, 18 Ludgate Hill, London & R. Lambe, 96 Gracechurch Street.

(A key that accompanied the engraving purported to identify various of the individuals and military units and acts of gallantry that were depicted.)

1819

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

DUKE OF WELLINGTON







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In a news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology, Charles Babbage met with the Chancellor of the British Exchequer, Fred Robinson and –because he had previously sold his soul to the devil in return for the backing of Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington – was able to secure pledges of government support for his computerization project, pledges which over a period of time he would be able to take to the bank to the tune of over £7,500 in development funding.21 This was at the time far greater than the greatest commitment the British government had ever made to the realization of any single invention. The prototype of the Difference Engine, vast and beautiful, now sits in the Kensington Science Museum, a tribute to British handicraft. Although it did not use electricity, which everyone nowadays assumes to be essential to computerization, but instead used cranks and gears and pulleys and shafts, it did work, and not after a fashion, but fully. Had it gone into production, the arguable benefits and traumas of computerization would have come to us a century earlier. Babbage’s prototype Analytical Engine never existed except on paper and in demonstration parts, but modern analysis shows that this design, also, would have worked had it been funded and completed. The problem was not in the concept, but was in the lack of the infrastructure which would have been required properly to implement the concept.

CONTINGENCYALTHOUGH VERY MANY OUTCOMES ARE OVERDETERMINED, WE TRUST

THAT SOMETIMES WE ACTUALLY MAKE REAL CHOICES.

1824

21.The Duke of Wellington, who had taken his smart pill, could see how important computers were going to be for the future of warfare: calculating the probable point of arrival of a naval artillery shell on a mapped shoreline, for instance, on the basis of a calculated gunship position obtained by sextant, so as to be able to achieve the surprise of first-round effectiveness. Real progress. The sort of thing Duke Reagan was so easily persuaded of, if you remember, by weapons system experts telling him that we could use our “smart bombs” and “delivery systems” to surprise Khaddafi in Tripoli without running the risk of surprising any of that man’s children.

ELECTRICWALDEN






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Jacob Perkins of Philadelphia, who had set up a factory in London in 1815 for the production of his many inventions, was demonstrating a machine gun to the Duke of Wellington. It was made of steel and it fired 100 rounds per minute. It shouldn’t have taken a military genius to figure out what impact such a machine would

have had on the less than three square miles of the Waterloo battlefield, had say a pushy guy like Napoleon Bonaparte been able to tow one of these devices behind his carriage. But the British, a fundamentally decent people, refused to purchase any such monstrous devices, thank the Lord.

HISTORY’S NOT MADE OF WOULD. WHEN SOMEONE REVEALS THAT THE PROMPT ADOPTION OF A PARTICULAR MECHANISM OF DEATH WOULD

HAVE ALTERED HUMAN HISTORY, S/HE DISCLOSES THAT WHAT IS BEING CRAFTED IS NOT REALITY BUT PREDESTINARIANISM. THE RULE OF REALITY IS THAT HISTORICAL ALTERNATIVE TRAJECTORIES DO NOT

OCCUR.

1825










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April 4, Tuesday: An agreement to be known as “the Protocol of St. Petersburg” was reached between the Duke of Wellington, representing Great Britain, and Tsar Nikolai I of Russia, by which Britain would be able to offer mediation between Greece and the Turks. The objective of Great Britain and Russia in entering into such an agreement would be to provide Greece with the status of a “tributary state” of the Ottoman Empire, possessing a certain degree of autonomy.

July 13, Thursday: On the glacis of Peter-Paul Fortress in Russia, a gallows had hastily been erected. All the prisoners were herded into the square to witness the execution of their compatriots before, at 3AM on that misty morning, the condemned, five officers of the “Decembrists” who had been selected by Tsar Nicholas to set an example for the rest, were led out into the flickering light of the bonfires with notices hanging on their chests “Criminals — Regicides!” After their epaulets had been torn off and cast into the flames, and after they had been blessed by the Archpriest Myslovskii, and after the ropes had been put in place and the hoods had been placed over their heads, the command was given and the supports were pulled away from under the platform. Three of these former army officers slipped through their nooses and fell to the ground. One, named Muravey, lay there on the ground waiting for the noose to again be placed around his neck and shouted out the frustration which had brought about the revolt of the previous December:

You’ll notice that this guy Muravey, whoever he was, was no dummy. He knew that the best way to get attention for this his last piece of social commentary, a remark which would become legendary, was to

1826

ENGLISH EVENTS OF 1826

My God! In this hopeless country they cannoteven hang people properly!




My country, my country, why hast thou forsaken me? — The cry of the person who has politics and thinks he has religion. . .

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/26/1826_NewMonthlyMagazine.pdf



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accompany them, as the last words of a human being about to be judged by Our Maker, with what would be taken by the Archpriest in attendance, Myslovskii, and numerous others at this ceremonial occasion, as a blasphemy.

The Duke of Wellington, in St. Petersburg for the state funeral of Tsar Alexander I, was equally discouraged at the condition of all the Russias, but in his case the occasion of his discouragement was having to stand around and see and smell that due to the long delay during the arrests and trials of the Decembrists, the corpse of the old tsar had become unfrozen and was decomposing. –Yet as a proper diplomat he could not afford to be on record as having blasphemed.


5th day 13 of 7 M / Our first meeting was silent & rather low -in the last which was our Select Meeting, life rose a little —In the Afternoon met with a committee from the Moy [Monthly] Meeting, which was a time of labour - The subject however was debated in love & resulted as well as could be expected considering the diversity of sentiment that existed among us —

My God! In this hopeless country they cannoteven bury people properly!








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January 22, Tuesday: Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington replaced Frederick John Robinson, Viscount Goderich as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1828






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March 4, Wednesday: King George IV granted an audience at Windsor Castle to the Duke of Wellington as his Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, and Baron Lyndhurst. After almost six hours of this interaction the Prime Minister became preoccupied with the thought that his king was mad.22

According to an almanac of the period, “Andrew Jackson inaugurated as President of the United States at Washington. Senate convened, and John C. Calhoun sworn in as Vice-President of the United States.”

General Andy would be bringing with him to the Executive Mansion Sam Patches, his wartime mount, plus Emily, Lady Nashville, and Bolivia, racing fillies, plus Truxton, a champion race horse, plus other assorted ponies, plus of course Poll, a parrot that could swear.

Per the ceremony which went down on the East Portico of the Capitol building on this day, the general known as “Andy” or “Long Knife” or “Old Hickory” became 7th President of the United States of America until 1837. As the first military leader to be elected President since George Washington, he was much admired by his electorate. In fact the election of this general was being heralded by many white Americans as a new page in the history of their Republic. Outgoing President John Quincy Adams did not at all share in this enthusiasm and disdained to be present at the swearing-in ceremony. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall administered the oath of office. Jackson was inaudible in delivering his inaugural address. A large group walked with him down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House and entered the executive mansion. There was such public cheer that the White House staff had to relocate the munchies out onto the lawn. To avoid the crush the President himself needed to make his exit by way of a window. This was our 1st president born in a log cabin and, in the drunken carouse that night at his inaugural ball, his rough buddies would be doing considerable damage to White House furnishings.

These had been the President’s (inaudible) remarks:

Fellow-Citizens: About to undertake the arduous duties that Ihave been appointed to perform by the choice of a free people,I avail myself of this customary and solemn occasion to expressthe gratitude which their confidence inspires and to acknowledgethe accountability which my situation enjoins. While themagnitude of their interests convinces me that no thanks can beadequate to the honor they have conferred, it admonishes me thatthe best return I can make is the zealous dedication of my humbleabilities to their service and their good. As the instrumentof the Federal Constitution it will devolve on me for a statedperiod to execute the laws of the United States, to superintendtheir foreign and their confederate relations, to manage theirrevenue, to command their forces, and, by communications to theLegislature, to watch over and to promote their interestsgenerally. And the principles of action by which I shallendeavor to accomplish this circle of duties it is now properfor me briefly to explain. In administering the laws ofCongress I shall keep steadily in view the limitations as wellas the extent of the Executive power, trusting thereby todischarge the functions of my office without transcending its

1829

22. We know that sometimes George would claim to have been at the Battle of Waterloo — but we do not know for sure that this was dementia because there is a possibility that he was merely attempting to annoy the Iron Duke. At any rate, he would die in about a year.

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/29/1829_AlmanacEvents.pdf




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authority. With foreign nations it will be my study to preservepeace and to cultivate friendship on fair and honorable terms,and in the adjustment of any differences that may exist or ariseto exhibit the forbearance becoming a powerful nation ratherthan the sensibility belonging to a gallant people. In suchmeasures as I may be called on to pursue in regard to the rightsof the separate States I hope to be animated by a proper respectfor those sovereign members of our Union, taking care not toconfound the powers they have reserved to themselves with thosethey have granted to the Confederacy. The management of thepublic revenue —that searching operation in all governments— isamong the most delicate and important trusts in ours, and itwill, of course, demand no inconsiderable share of my officialsolicitude. Under every aspect in which it can be considered itwould appear that advantage must result from the observance ofa strict and faithful economy. This I shall aim at the moreanxiously both because it will facilitate the extinguishment ofthe national debt, the unnecessary duration of which isincompatible with real independence, and because it willcounteract that tendency to public and private profligacy whicha profuse expenditure of money by the Government is but too aptto engender. Powerful auxiliaries to the attainment of thisdesirable end are to be found in the regulations provided by thewisdom of Congress for the specific appropriation of publicmoney and the prompt accountability of public officers. Withregard to a proper selection of the subjects of impost with aview to revenue, it would seem to me that the spirit of equity,caution, and compromise in which the Constitution was formedrequires that the great interests of agriculture, commerce, andmanufactures should be equally favored, and that perhaps theonly exception to this rule should consist in the peculiarencouragement of any products of either of them that may be foundessential to our national independence. Internal improvementand the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promotedby the constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are ofhigh importance. Considering standing armies as dangerous tofree governments in time of peace, I shall not seek to enlargeour present establishment, nor disregard that salutary lessonof political experience which teaches that the military shouldbe held subordinate to the civil power. The gradual increase ofour Navy, whose flag has displayed in distant climes our skillin navigation and our fame in arms; the preservation of ourforts, arsenals, and dockyards, and the introduction ofprogressive improvements in the discipline and science of bothbranches of our military service are so plainly prescribed byprudence that I should be excused for omitting their mentionsooner than for enlarging on their importance. But the bulwarkof our defense is the national militia, which in the presentstate of our intelligence and population must render usinvincible. As long as our Government is administered for thegood of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long asit secures to us the rights of person and of property, libertyof conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending; andso long as it is worth defending a patriotic militia will coverit with an impenetrable aegis. Partial injuries and occasionalmortifications we may be subjected to, but a million of armedfreemen, possessed of the means of war, can never be conqueredby a foreign foe. To any just system, therefore, calculated to






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strengthen this natural safeguard of the country I shallcheerfully lend all the aid in my power. It will be my sincereand constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes withinour limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humaneand considerate attention to their rights and their wants whichis consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelingsof our people. The recent demonstration of public sentimentinscribes on the list of Executive duties, in characters toolegible to be overlooked, the task of reform, which will requireparticularly the correction of those abuses that have broughtthe patronage of the Federal Government into conflict with thefreedom of elections, and the counteraction of those causeswhich have disturbed the rightful course of appointment and haveplaced or continued power in unfaithful or incompetenthands. In the performance of a task thus generally delineatedI shall endeavor to select men whose diligence and talents willinsure in their respective stations able and faithfulcooperation, depending for the advancement of the public servicemore on the integrity and zeal of the public officers than ontheir numbers. A diffidence, perhaps too just, in my ownqualifications will teach me to look with reverence to theexamples of public virtue left by my illustrious predecessors,and with veneration to the lights that flow from the mind thatfounded and the mind that reformed our system. The samediffidence induces me to hope for instruction and aid from thecoordinate branches of the Government, and for the indulgenceand support of my fellow-citizens generally. And a firm relianceon the goodness of that Power whose providence mercifullyprotected our national infancy, and has since upheld ourliberties in various vicissitudes, encourages me to offer up myardent supplications that He will continue to make our belovedcountry the object of His divine care and gracious benediction.


4th day 4th of 3 M 1829 / Today I got into the Stage & rode to Bristol and the travelling very bad & finding a Packet at Bristol was going to Newport where I was bound got on board her & arrived at Aunt nancy Carpenter about 7 OClock in the evening. Found she & Polly Mc Cush with the rest of the family all very glad to see me. After taking a dish of tea & calling to see my Mother & Brother Isaacs family & then making a visit to Father Rodmans & calling at [—] Taylors shop I returned to Aunt Nancy Carpenters & lodged








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June 1, Monday: Alexander Dallas Bache resigned from the US Army.

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was riding his horse (horse name not of record) in a review with a huge wind-catching Grenadier hat on his head, when a sudden gust knocked our guy right off said mount.

TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS

Wow, talk about embarrassed!






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July 18, Sunday: The State of Montevideo became the Eastern Republic of Uruguay.

According to a journal kept by Charles Greville, Clerk to the Privy Council, “Everybody expected that the new king would keep the Ministers in office, but he threw himself into the arms of the Duke of Wellington with the strongest expressions of confidence and esteem. The Duke of Wellington told me he was delighted with him — ‘If I had been able to deal with my late master (George IV) as I do with the present, I should have got on much better’ — that he was so reasonable and tractable, and that he had done more business with him in ten minutes than with the other in as many days.”


1st day 18th of 7 M / Before we went into Meeting this Morning the sad intelligence reached us that two promising young men, who went into the river to bathe were drown’d. — Our friend mary B Allen was here on her return from Nantucket & attended Meeting & was much favourd in testimony - she alluded to the death of a girl at Nantucket who was formerly a Scholar here who departed this life in great peace & tranquility. — In the Afternoon Wm Almy was here - he alluded in his testimony to the death of the two young men this Morning & was followed by M B Allen & a day of favour it has been, for which I trust we are thankful — Ann Miflin an Elder from Philad was at meeting & in the Afternoon Saml R Wood of Philad & Wm Jenkins was here. —

September 15, Wednesday: Various US commissioners, including General Coffee and John Eaton, met with various Choctaw chiefs and headmen at Dancing Rabbit Creek (Mississippi?), to pressure them to sign over their territory and begone across the Mississippi River.

On an experimental railroad ride from London to Brighton, which would succeed in replacing what had been six arduous hours by stagecoach with what would be two pleasant hours by steam coach “at the rate of five and thirty miles per hour,” the young and impressionable Fanny Kemble had been seated beside engineer George Stephenson, he of the “dark and deeply marked countenance,” aboard one of the cars drawn along after the locomotive Rocket.

The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed,and though the weather was uncertain, enormous massesof densely packed people lined the road, shouting andwaving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them. Wetravelled at 35 miles an hour (swifter than a birdflies). When I closed my eyes this sensation of flyingwas quite delightful.I had been unluckily separated from my mother in thefirst distribution of places, but by an exchange ofseats which she was enabled to make she rejoined me whenI was at the height of my ecstasy, which wasconsiderably damped by finding that she was frightenedto death, and intent upon nothing but devising means ofescaping from a situation which appeared to her tothreaten with instant annihilation herself and all hertravelling companions.

1830








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When we neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark,and it began to rain. The vast concourse of people whohad assembled to witness the triumphant arrival of thesuccessful travellers was of the lowest orders ofmechanics and artisans, among whom great distress and adangerous spirit of discontent with the government atthat time prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted thecarriage, full of influential personages, in which theDuke of Wellington sat.High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces aloom had been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver, evidently set there as a representativeman, to protest against the triumph of machinery and thegain and glory which the wealthy Liverpool andManchester men were likely to derive from it.

With such experiments completed, the grand opening ceremonies for the initial long-distance passenger railway for which high-speed locomotives were designed, the Liverpool to Manchester Railway, was marred on this day by the accidental death of William Huskisson, a prominent politician. The directors of the company had been unsure whether to use locomotives or stationary engines on their line, and had offered a competition in October 1829 in which the best locomotive had win a prize of £500, their concept being that the winning design might be good enough to be used on their new railway. The Stockton & Darlington line, which had opened in 1825, had been reported as having reduced the cost of transporting coal from 18s. to 8s. 6d. the ton [would that be the long ton or the short ton?]. The investors in the Bridgewater Canal had been making a killing in the transporting of raw materials and finished goods between the textile industry centered in Manchester and the prime port of Liverpool. Shares in the canal company, originally purchased at £70, were selling by 1825 at £1,250 and paying an annual dividend of £35! A group of businessmen led by James Sandars had therefore recruited Stephenson to build them a 31-mile Liverpool & Manchester Railway the main objective of which would be to let the water out of this investment pool.

Since the Marquis of Stafford, who had become the principal shareholder in the canal venture upon the death of the Duke of Bridgewater, was realizing an annual profit of £100,000 from his shares, it was obvious that he would lead in a struggle against this railway plan. After Stephenson’s proposed route had been nixed in the House of Commons, James Sandars recruited a company run by George Rennie to do another survey and perhaps build it. However, the officials of this company refused to deal with Stephenson (they did not consider him a bona fide engineer) and for this reason lost the contract. In 1826 Parliament had finally granted permission for the Manchester & Liverpool Railway project to be begun. George Stephenson needed to figure out a way to pass over the unstable peat bog of Chat Moss, create a 9-arch viaduct across the Sankey Valley, and cut through solid rock for two full miles at Olive Mount. The Liverpool & Manchester railway was to






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consist of a double line of rails of the fish-bellied type laid on stone or timber sleepers. Passenger trains were to start at the Crown Street Station in Liverpool and, after passing Moorish Arch at Edge Hill, arrive at Water Street in Manchester.

The Duke of Wellington was traveling toward the ceremonial cite despite his declaration of to the economic unviability of these new schemes to build rail roads:

There were eight trainloads of dignitaries coming out of Manchester that morning. On the south one of the two tracks, a trainload of the grandest dignitaries of all, the Duke representing the aristocracy of England and Sir Robert Peel representing the people of England, was being pulled by the locomotive Northumbrian manned by none other than its inventor Stephenson.

“[The railroad will] only encourage the common peopleto move about needlessly.”

— Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

On the north one of the two tracks, the seven trainloads of lesser dignitaries were to pass along at close interval. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was one of the passengers on the initial train from Liverpool to Manchester. The whole apparatus had been so unfamiliar —it was such a black night, and there had been so many people standing around the train in the station— that he presumed at first that the wheels of the train were running in a groove rather than atop a rail. He created this line which would appear in 1842 in “Locksley Hall”:

Depend upon it, Sir, nothing will come of them!







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Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Seventeen miles out of Manchester, 56 minutes out, the routine was to be that all the trains would stop to take on water at the Parkside station, and then the one train of extreme unctions on the south track would remain while the other seven trainloads of unctions passed by and saluted them. The opening ceremony included a procession of eight locomotives, including the Northumbrian, the Rocket, the North Star, and the Phoenix. After the group of special visitors were given a ride on the Northumbrian, a key MP in the governmental reorganization then going on, a gent by the name of William Huskisson, got out to stretch his legs and the Duke saw him and waved, and the man started toward the state carriage in response to this hail from the chief just as the Rocket came thundering in. Warnings were shouted when people realized that the Rocket, driven by Joseph Locke, was about to pass the Northumbrian. The Duke opened his door and held out his hand but Huskisson, who had acute rheumatism, fell and the locomotive badly mangled one of his legs. Lady Wilton was so positioned as to witness everything, and later reported the event to Fanny Kemble:

We started on Wednesday last, to the number of about eighthundred people, in carriages. The most intense curiosity andexcitement prevailed, and, though the weather was uncertain,enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road,shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them.What with the sight and sound of these cheering multitudes andthe tremendous velocity with which we were borne past them, myspirits rose to the true champagne height, and I never enjoyedanything so much as the first hour of our progress. I had beenunluckily separated from my mother in the first distribution ofplaces, but by an exchange of seats which she was enabled tomake she rejoined me when I was at the height of my ecstasy,which we considerably damped by finding that she was frightenedto death, and intent upon nothing but devising means of escapingfrom a situation which appeared to her to threaten with instantannihilation herself and all her travelling companions. While Iwas chewing the cud of this disappointment, which was ratherbitter, as I had expected her to be as delighted as myself withour excursion, a man flew by us, calling out through a speaking-trumpet to stop the engine, for that somebody in the directors’carriage had sustained an injury. We were all stoppedaccordingly, and presently a hundred voices were heardexclaiming that Mr Huskisson was killed; the confusion thatensued is indescribable; the calling out from carriage tocarriage to ascertain the truth, the contrary reports which weresent back to us, the hundred questions eagerly uttered at once,and the repeated and urgent demands for surgical assistance,

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON






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created a sudden turmoil that was quite sickening. At last wedistinctly ascertained that the unfortunate man’s thigh wasbroken. From Lady Wilton, who was in the Duke’s carriage, andwithin three yards of the spot where the accident happened, Ihad the following details, the horror of witnessing which wewere spared through out situation behind the great carriage. Theengine had stopped to take in a supply of water, and several ofthe gentlemen in the directors’ carriage had jumped out to lookabout them. Lord Wilton, Count Batthyany, Count Matuscenitz, andMr Huskisson among the rest were standing talking in the middleof the road, when an engine on the other line, which was paradingup and down merely to show its speed, was seen coming down uponthem like lightning. The most active of those in peril sprangback into their seats; Lord Wilton saved his life only by rushingbehind the Duke’s carriage, and Count Matuscenitz had but justleaped into it, with the engine all but touching his heels ashe did so; while poor Mr Huskisson, less active from the effectsof age and ill-health, bewildered, too, by the frantic cries of“Stop the engine! Clear the track!” that resounded on all sides,completely lost his head, looked helplessly to the left andright, and was instantaneously prostrated by the fatal machine,which dashed down like a thunderbolt upon him, and passed overhis leg, smashing and mangling it in the most horrible way. (LadyWilton said she distinctly heard the crushing of the bone.) Soterrible was the effect of the appalling accident that, exceptthat ghastly “crushing” and poor Mrs Huskisson’s piercingshriek, not a sound was heard or a word uttered among theimmediate spectators of the catastrophe. Lord Wilton was thefirst to raise the poor sufferer, and calling to aid his surgicalskill, which is considerable, he tied up the severed artery,and, for a time at least, prevented death by loss of blood. MrHuskisson was then placed in a carriage with his wife and LordWilton, and the engine, having been detached from the directors’carriage, conveyed them to Manchester. So great was the shockproduced upon the whole party by this event, that the Duke ofWellington declared his intention not to proceed, but to returnimmediately to Liverpool. However, upon its being representedto him that the whole population of Manchester had turned outto witness the procession, and that a disappointment might giverise to riots and disturbances, he consented to go on, andgloomily enough the rest of the journey was accomplished....After this disastrous event the day became overcast, and as weneared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it began torain. The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witnessthe triumphant arrival of the successful travellers was of thelowest order of mechanics and artisans, among whom greatdistress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with thegovernment at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted thecarriage, full of influential personages, in which the Duke ofWellington sat. High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowlingfaces a loom had been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver, evidently set there as a representative man, toprotest against the triumph of machinery and the gain and glorywhich the wealthy Liverpool and Manchester men were likely toderive from it. The contrast between our departure fromLiverpool and our arrival in Manchester was one of the moststriking things I ever witnessed. The news of Mr Huskisson’sfatal accident spread immediately, and his death, which did not







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occur till the evening, was anticipated by rumour.

The Observer would report the incident slightly differently in its issue of the 19th:

The great national work was opened to the public on Wednesdaylast, with all the ceremonies befitting such an importantoccasion. The Duke of Wellington, Mr. Huskisson, Sir R. Peel,Prince Esterhazy, and Mr. Holmes were guests of the Committee,together with almost every person of consideration in theneighbouring counties. The project of establishing acorrespondence by railway between two of the most populous andimportant towns in the kingdom, was not started till 1824, whena Mr. James proposed it. The rate of travelling is spoken of asbeing likely to average about sixteen or eighteen miles an hour.Several of the passengers of the Northumbrian got out to walkon the railway, and among them was Mr. Huskisson. He wasdiscoursing with Mr. J. Sanders, one of the principaloriginators and promoters of the railroad, when the Rocketengine came slowly up, and as the engineer had been for sometime checking its velocity, so silently that it was almost uponthe group before they observed it. In the hurry of the momentall attempted to get out of the way. Mr Huskisson hesitated,staggered a little, as if not knowing what to do, then attemptedagain to get into the carriage. As he took hold of the door todo this, but the motion threw him off balance, and before hecould recover he was thrown down directly in the path of theRocket. Mrs. Huskisson, who, along with several other ladies,witnessed the accident, uttered a shriek of agony, which nonewho heard will ever forget.

There was no surgeon present and although a physician attempted to stem the bleeding and although Stephenson used the Northumbrian to get the injured man to the nearest medical attention at the vicarage in Eccles at the rate of 36 miles an hour, Huskisson would die later that day. And this, the first rail fatality, would not be the last — but who among us can stand in the way of progress without getting run over?23

Such large crowds had assembled along the line between Liverpool and Manchester that it was considered prudent to continue with the procession. Fanny Kemble would report that:

The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and thoughthe weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packedpeople lined the road, shouting and waving hats andhandkerchiefs as we flew by them. We travelled at 35 miles anhour (swifter than a bird flies). When I closed my eyes thissensation of flying was quite delightful.I had been unluckily separated from my mother in the firstdistribution of places, but by an exchange of seats which shewas enabled to make she rejoined me when I was at the height ofmy ecstasy, which was considerably damped by finding that shewas frightened to death, and intent upon nothing but devisingmeans of escaping from a situation which appeared to her tothreaten with instant annihilation herself and all hertravelling companions.When we neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and itbegan to rain. The vast concourse of people who had assembledto witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travellerswas of the lowest orders of mechanics and artisans, among whomgreat distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with thegovernment at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted the

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carriage, full of influential personages, in which the Duke ofWellington sat.High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces a loom hadbeen erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver,evidently set there as a representative man, to protest againstthe triumph of machinery and the gain and glory which the wealthyLiverpool and Manchester men were likely to derive from it.

As the Northumbrian entered Manchester its passenger carriages were pelted by the weavers with stones— these laborers still resented the Duke of Wellington’s involvement in the Peterloo Massacre and his strong opposition to the proposed Reform Act of 1832.

The Liverpool & Manchester railway would be a great success. In 1831 the company would transport 445,047 passengers for receipts amounting to £155,702 and annual profits amounting to £71,098. By 1844 receipts would reach £258,892 and annual profits would reach £136,688. During this period shareholders would regularly receive an annual dividend of £10 for each £100 they had invested.


4 day 15 of 9 M / Silent Meeting at the Institution but not so dull as sometimes. —

23. Have you heard the story, that our railroad rails are the distance apart that they are simply because that was the distance between the wheels of a Roman chariot? There has been this delightful story being passed around because it can be made to serve certain concepts of path-dependence. This story has been passed around particularly by those people within and outside the Department of Defense who love to bemoan our outdated or bureaucratically oppressive “MilSpecs” — of which the standard railroad gauge is cited as an antique and perhaps ridiculous example.The story that is being told, albeit interesting and scandalous, seems to be a story without much historic merit.The distance 4’8.5” (1435 millimeter) is the standard gauge in North America, most of Europe (not in Iberia or former Russian and Soviet empires), and parts of South America, Asia, and Australia. that comprises nearly 60 percent of world route length. The L&MRR had a strong demonstration effect in Continental Europe as well as the US, and engineers trained by mine-works engineer Stephenson also aided the gauge’s diffusion in Britain and the Continent — but not in North America.The standard width has been characterized as exceedingly odd. However, for one thing, American railways were not built by expatriate Brit engineers, but almost exclusively by Americans copying British engineering practice. This practice our local engineers happened to copy was that of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway that had been opened in 1830. Stephenson indeed had copied for this new railroad the gauge with which he had previous experience in the mines, but this was originally the not quite so “exceedingly odd” measure of 4’8” rather than 4’8.5” — He had added an extra half inch during construction of the L&MRR in order to allow a little more leeway between rails and wheel flanges. There is some evidence that the original rails were often 2" wide, indicating a width of track including the rails of an even 5’0” — still less an “exceedingly odd” measure.Mining tramways actually differed in width, ranging mostly between 3’0” and 4’6” in southern England and Wales. It could be regarded as a mere accident of history that the gauge with which Stevenson happened to have experience was the 4’8” gauge of northern England. It appears true that mining ore carts were approximately the same width as road wagons, but the width of road wagons actually varied by region. It is plausible that the width of wagons was fitted to road ruts, although ruts at narrow city gates might have mattered more than ruts on open roads. The main “evidence” for carrying the story back to Roman chariots comes not from any study of the history of road ruts but from consideration of ancient “groove-ways” (which were essentially permanent stone “ruts,” a practical form of improved road surface at the time). It is true that one or two of these (but these one or two were not in Britain) happen to have roughly the same “gauge” as modern railways — within a broad band of wheel widths that would fit the grooves. However, others had other widths.Some American engineers copied Stephenson’s practice only approximately, introducing nonstandard gauges of 4’9” and 4’10” and 5’0”. The latter two choices would lead to some difficulties later on, when we would go about integrating our continental railway network.








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November 4, Thursday: Harriet Arbuthnot, wife of the Tory member of Parliament Charles Arbuthnot and close friend of the Duke of Wellington, noted in her diary that “Parliament was opened by the King on the 2nd. He was very well received by the people who, however, were very disorderly, hooted and hissed the Duke wherever they could see him. People complain that the Duke did harm by declaring publicly he would not lend himself to any reform and that he thought, in its results, no form of representation could be better than ours. I don’t believe there will be any disturbance. The wretched state to which Belgium is reduced by their desire for reform is a pretty good lesson for sober and reflecting people such as we are.”

John Cab Hobhouse, a Whig politician, recorded in his journal that “The Duke of Wellington made a speech in the Lords, and declared against Reform. I hear he was hissed, and hurt by a stone. I heard this evening that a very unpleasant feeling was rising among the working classes, and that the shopkeepers in the Metropolis were so much alarmed that they talked of arming themselves.”


3rd day [sic] 4th of 11th M 1830 / To day was our Sub-committee - It was a pleasant harmonious time & after it was over divers of our friends set out to attend the Quarterly Meeting approaching at Somersett. —

November 7, Sunday: Harriet Arbuthnot, wife of the Tory member of Parliament Charles Arbuthnot and close friend of the Duke of Wellington, noted in her diary that “We hear the radicals are determined to make a riot. The King gets quantities of letters every day telling him he will be murdered. The King is very much frightened and the Queen cries half the day with fright. The Duke is greatly affected by all this state of affairs. He feels that beginning reform is beginning revolution, and therefore he must endeavour to stem the tide as long as possible, and that all he has to do is to see when and how it will be best for the country that he should resign. He thinks he cannot till he is beat in the House of Commons. He talked about this with me yesterday.”


6th day 5th [sic] of 11 M 1830 / Our School committee was large & a good comfortable time - tho’ the opportunities in the Schools were not open times - Moses Brown & M B Allen said a little in the boys School, & the Girls Apartment I did not go into having some other concerns to attend to. —

November 8, Monday: Charles Greville, Clerk of the Privy Council, recorded in his journal that “The Duke of Wellington made a violent and uncalled for declaration against Reform, which has without doubt sealed his fate. Never was there an act of more egregious folly, or one so universally condemned by friends and foes.”

King Francesco I of the Two Sicilies died in Naples and was succeeded by his son Ferdinando II.

Clara Wieck made her official debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. She played her variations on an Original Theme and a song, probably Der Traumto words of Tiedge. She also played Rondo brilliant for piano and orchestra op.101 by Kalkbrenner, Variations Brillantes op.23 by Henri Herz, and Quartet Concertante for four pianos and orchestra op.230 by Carl Czerny.


7th day 6 [sic] of 11 M / Spent most of the day in attending the Meeting for Sufferings. -This Morning Abigail Robinsona & Br David Rodman left for home - this is the first committee Abigail has been able to attend







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since she was appointed. - her health is so delicate that she seldom of late gets so far from home. —

November 15, Monday: In England, a reform measure proposed by Henry Parnell unexpectedly carried in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister –the Duke of Wellington, who had the greatest affection for his nation exactly the way it already was– resigned. Earl Grey would become the Prime Minister and form a Whig government.


2nd day 15 of 11 M / Moses Brown & Wm Jenkins were here today -it has been such a long spell of dull weather that we have had but little company for ten days past. — In the Afternoon Walter Allen & his daughter Lydia B came - the latter to resume her old station of teacher in the School. —

November 22, Monday: The Belgian National Assembly voted to institute a monarchy.

Charles Grey, Earl Grey replaced Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.









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In France, two dramatists, Charles Théodore and Jean Hippolyte Cogniard, presented a comedy “La cocarde tricolore” in which they used a soldier of Napoléon Bonaparte’s army, one Nicolas Chauvin who was extremely proud of having been mustered out on a pension of 200 francs per year after being wounded in 17 separate engagements, as a type for extreme nationalistic sentiment and extreme hero worship. Thus “chauvinism” became part of our language.

In England, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, the genius who at Waterloo relieved the English terror of Napoléon, a man to whom everyone listened despite the fact that there was no idea in his head, declared grandly that:24

He was paraphrasing Montaigne and Lord Francis Bacon, of course,25 as they had paraphrased THE BOOK OF PROVERBS (Chapter 3, verse 25 ), but this was not widely reported by the worshipful press.

1831

24. I got Wellesley’s wording from the NOTES OF CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 1831-1851 that Philip, the Earl of Stanhope, published in 1888 (1938 edition). [But had “The only thing I am afraid of is fear” been well known before the Earl published these notes in 1888?]25. Francis Bacon’s 1623 “DE AUGMENTIS SCIENTIARUM, Book II, Fortitudo” and Michel de Montaigne 1580 ESSAIS, Book I, Chapter 17. PROVERBS 3:25 records this commonplace –which must be indeed ancient– as “Be not afraid of sudden fear.”

The only thing I am afraid of is fear.






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It has been rumored that after the death of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington’s wife and mother of his children during this year, Lady Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, the wealthiest heiress in England and by comparison with this widower quite young, proposed to him — but he demurred.

March 1, Tuesday: In the House of Commons, Lord John Russell introduced a “Great Reform Bill” intended to reduce the electoral dominance of the landed aristocracy.

The town of Newcastle had in 1599 volunteered to pay a duty of one shilling per chaldron on its coal to Queen Elizabeth on account of certain tax arrears, and because King Charles II had passed on this shilling per chaldron in 1677 to the duke of Richmond it had come to be referred to as “the Richmond shilling.” The tax arrears of the town of Newcastle having long since been oversupplied, as of this date that duty shilling finally was relinquished.


3rd day 1 of 3 M 1831 / Today was our Sub-committee, there were but few of the committee here but enough to transact the buisness that was necessary. — The traveling is so bad that many could not get here. — Pliny Earl was agreed with as a teacher &







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introduced to the School —

April 11, Monday: In the continuing flap over the hostility that the Vice President, John Caldwell Calhoun, or maybe his wife, was displaying in regard to Mrs. Margaret O’Neal Eaton, the wife of former Secretary of War John H. Eaton, Martin Van Buren felt he needed to resign as Secretary of State.

The Duke of Wellington wrote to Mr. Gleig that “The conduct of government would be impossible, if the House of Commons should be brought to a greater degree under popular influence. That is the ground on which I stand in respect to the question in general of Reform in Parliament. I confess that I see in thirty members for rotten boroughs, thirty men, I don’t care of what party, who would preserve the state of property as it is; who would maintain by their votes the Church of England, its possessions, its churches and universities. I don’t think that we could spare thirty or forty of these representatives, or with advantage exchange them for thirty or forty members elected for the great towns by any new system.”

April 20, Wednesday: Wilhelm replaced Karl II as Duke of Brunswick.


4th day 20 of 4 M / Meeting at School a good silent opportunity. —








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In England, the House of Commons’s Reform Bill was defeated and the Parliament was dissolved. The gentry were arming their country houses with cannon against anticipated mobs. In the USA, the Washington Globe announced the resignations of John Eaton and Martin Van Buren. Van Buren’s friends in New-York, unaware that he had something to do with engineering the whole thing, were worrying.

The following is a snippet from Charles Haskell’s REMINISCENCES OF NEW YORK BY AN OCTOGENARIAN:

April 28, Thursday: Angelina Emily Grimké was accepted as a Friend and as a member of the Fourth and Arch Street monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (this was the monthly meeting of her sister, Friend Sarah Moore Grimké).

The Duke of Wellington wrote to Mrs Arbuthnot that “I learn from John that the mob attacked my House and broke about thirty windows. He fired two blunderbusses in the air from the top of the house, and they went off.”

April 29, Friday: The Duke of Wellington wrote to Mrs Arbuthnot that “I think that my servant John saved my house, or the lives of many of the mob –possibly both– by firing as he did. They certainly intended to destroy the house, and did not care one pin for the poor Duchess being dead in the house.”26

May 1, Sunday: The Duke of Wellington wrote to Mrs Arbuthnot that “Matters appear to be going as badly as possible. It may be relied upon that we shall have a revolution. I have never doubted the inclination and disposition of the lower orders of the people. I told you years ago that they are rotten to the core. They are not bloodthirsty, but they are desirous of plunder. They will plunder, annihilate all property in the country. The majority of them will starve; and we shall witness scenes such as have never yet occurred in any part of the world.”


1st day 1 of 5 M 1831 / Silent in the Morning Meeting & in the Afternoon Wm Almy attended & had good service.

26. For the Duke, there was only one thing that ever mattered, and that was, whose side you were on.

William Cullen Bryant, editor of the Evening Post, and WilliamL. Stone, of the Commercial Advertiser, met in Broadway near ParkPlace, and a personal rencontre occurred, Bryant striking Stonewith a cowhide, whereupon they closed and were parted by thebystanders. Stone prevailed, to the extent of carrying off thewhip with which he had been attacked.

THE POET WITHOUT HIS WHIP








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May 13, Sunday: Georges Cuvier died in Paris.

According to The Observer, “At a quarter past twelve o’clock, the Royal carriage in which their Majesties were seated, without attendants, reached the village of Hounslow. The postillions passed on at a rapid rate till they entered the town of Brentford; where the people, who had assembled in great numbers, expressed by groans, hisses, and exclamations, their disapprobation of his Majesty’s conduct with respect to the Administration. The Duke of Wellington had entered the Palace in full uniform about a quarter of an hour before the Majesties, and had been assailed by the people with groans and hisses. The Duke, after remaining more than three hours with his Majesty, left about a quarter-past four, amidst groans and hisses even more vehement than when he arrived. Lord Frederick Fitzclarence was received with the same disapprobation, and loud cries of ‘Reform’.”

In Providence, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

1st day 13 of 5 M 1832 / Enoch & Lydia went to Scituate Meeting - The charge of our Meeting at the Institution of course fell on my wife & I - both were solid & silent. —My diary has been unusually neglected partly arising from an apprehension that there is but little use in keeping it up -there is a constant sameness in events or occurrences of my life. - or at any rate there is not much of Interest to record, & yet I do not feel easy wholly to omit it. — While I am far from being exempt from trials - there is much in my life which I have cause to be humbly thankful for to Him whose hand of love & power has thro’ the various turnings & courses which I have experienced has indeed been visible & often extended for my help. —

1832








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July 29, Monday: Charles Babbage reported to the British Treasury that he had had an unsatisfactory meeting with the contractor Joseph Clement subsequent to their letter to him dated May 29th, and had requested that the contractor for his Calculational Engine express his views in writing.

William Wilberforce died.

That Sunday in London, Waldo Emerson would attend Wilberforce’s Westminster Abbey funeral — and would be able there to get quite a good look at a much more lively and interesting and living personage, man of the

1833






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hour, alpha male, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.

Commander George Back arrived at Fort Chipewyan.

After some detentions of an ordinary kind, we got to FortChipewyan on the 29th of July. We arrived so early, that we werenot in the least expected; and the canoe was not seen untilwithin a short distance of the land, - a circumstance by no meanspleasing to the guide, who, besides his own decorations of manycoloured feathers, &c., had taken more than ordinary pains todisplay to the best advantage the crimson beauties of a largesilk flag.

THE FROZEN NORTH







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June 10, Tuesday: David Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, John Marshall (1755-1835)’s A HISTORY OF THE COLONIES PLANTED BY THE ENGLISH ON THE CONTINENT OF NORTH AMERICA, FROM THEIR SETTLEMENT, TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THAT WAR WHICH TERMINATED IN THEIR INDEPENDENCE.... (Philadelphia: Abraham Small, 1824).

More than 3,000 gathered at Brown’s Race to celebrate Jonathan Child’s inauguration as Rochester, New York’s first mayor.

HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin sailed up the Pacific coast of the South American continent.

In Leipzig, Richard Wagner’s initial published essay “Die deutsche Oper” appeared in Zeitung fur die elegante Welt.

In Oxford, England, “Captivity of Judah,” an oratorio by William Crotch to words of Schomberg and Owen, was performed for the initial time, at ceremonies installing the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor of the university (also performed was the premiere of Crotch’s ode “When these are days of old” to words of Keble).

Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh Carlyle moved to 5 Great Cheyne Row (now 24 Cheyne Row) in the Chelsea district of London near the Thames River.

He has spent the last quarter of his life in London, writingbooks; has the fame, as all readers know, of having made Englandacquainted with Germany, in late years, and done much else thatis novel and remarkable in literature. He especially is theliterary man of those parts. You may imagine him living inaltogether a retired and simple way, with small family, in aquiet part of London, called Chelsea, a little out of the dinof commerce, in “Cheyne Row,” there, not far from the “ChelseaHospital.” “A little past this, and an old ivy-clad church, withits buried generations lying around it,” writes one traveller,“you come to an antique street running at right angles with theThames, and, a few steps from the river, you find Carlyle’s nameon the door.”

With the exception of the soundproofed room which the writer would have constructed at the top of the house during the 1850s, the building now preserved by the Carlyle’s House Memorial Trust and by the National Trust still very much echoes this contemporary description, which is of Carlyle’s penning:

The House itself is eminent, antique; wainscotted to the veryceiling, and has been all new-painted and repaired; broadishstair, with massive balustrade (in the old style) corniced and

1834

Oxford




Carlyle letter quoted in Simon Heffer’s Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995), page 144.



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as thick as one’s thigh; floors firm as a rock, wood of themhere and there worm-eaten, yet capable of cleanness, and stillwith thrice the strength of a modern floor. And then as to room... Three stories besides the sunk story; in every one of themthree apartments in depth (something like 40 feet in all; forit was 13 of my steps!): Thus there is a front dining room(marble chimney-piece &c); then a back dining room (orbreakfast-room) a little narrower (by reason of the kitchenstair); then out from this, and narrower still (to allow a back-window, you consider), a china room, or pantry, or I know notwhat, all shelved, and fit to hold crockery for the whole street.Such is the ground-area, which of course continues to the top,and furnishes every Bedroom with a dressing room, or even witha second bedroom ... a most massive, roomy, sufficient oldhouse; with places, for example, to hang say three dozen hatsor cloaks on; and as many crevices, and queer old presses, andshelved closets (all tight and new painted in their way) as wouldgratify the most covetous Goody. Rent £35!

November 17, Monday: Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington replaced William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The Reverend Frederic Henry Hedge wrote to Margaret Fuller indicating that he had just finished reading SARTOR RESARTUS.

December 10, Wednesday: Joseph Emerson Worcester replied moderately and specifically and factually to the accusations that he had been plagiarizing the work of Noah Webster.

Sir Robert Peel, 2d Baronet, took over as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who had for three weeks been acting for him (because at the time of the dismissal of Lord Melbourne in November, he had been in Italy).

William Gladstone would be appointed Junior Lord of the Treasury in Peel’s 1st ministry.

Alexander Chalmers died in London after having produced, in addition to the materials already cited, editions of the works of the Scottish poet and philosopher James Beattie, the novels of Henry Fielding, and the historical treatises of Edward Gibbon.

SARTOR RESARTUS

STUDY THIS STRANGENESS




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/Carlyle/SARTOR/directory.pdf




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May 2, Saturday: In an attempt to satisfy his creditors Richard Wagner organized a benefit concert for himself in Magdeburg, including a large orchestra and the famed singer Wilhelmine Schroder-Devrient. The evening was, however, a fiasco, being so poorly attended that in fact the performers outnumbering the listeners — and even those who had attended were beginning to drift away before the orchestra arrived at the conclusion to “Wellington’s Victory.”

1835






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George Payne Rainsford James resided at Walmer and was frequently a guest of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle.

1842







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January 22, Thursday: The final of the 7 lectures in Waldo Emerson’s 1845/1846 lecture series in Boston (this would become the initial lecture of the series “Goethe, or the Writer”).

England’s efforts to repeal the Corn Laws so that the people might be fed, and Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington’s opposition to such crowd-pleasing antics, gave rise to an amusing cartoon:

1846




The Iron Duke is the guy with the sign, bemoaning the fall in the price of bread, in this cartoon dating to the Corn Law Repeal politics of January 22, 1846.



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To provide a demonstration of his journeyman skills as a surveyor, Henry Thoreau did a survey of Walden Pond:

(he would have this tipped into his bound volume of his lyceum lectures, WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS, now between pages 285 and 287 per the current Princeton numbering).




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/WALDEN/WALDEN.html



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Pages 286/7 of WALDEN, as published.




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(Various bores of cannon were cast at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, England, to discharge various sizes of cast-iron ball. There were 6-pounders, 9-pounders, 12-pounders, 30-pound carronades with trunions, 32-pounders, 56-pounders, and 68-pounders. The heavier of these guns were of course not suitable for ships, but were useful for harbor defense. We have a record of a 56-pound cannonball being used in a shotput competition:

That “56-pounder” at the end of a heavy rope, used by Concord folks in an attempt to sound out the bottomlessness of Walden Pond, had been one of those left over from shore defense. The humor of this is that they would have obtained a more sensitive and accurate reading by merely tying an ordinary 1-pound rock to the end of an ordinary codline — the vast amount of excess weight had only made their trial that much more inaccurate, in that after this massive cannonball was already resting on the bottom the necessarily thick and heavy wet rope would have been by its own weight continuing to draw itself downward, only to coil around the iron resting in the bottom muck.)

WALDEN: As I was desirous to recover the long lost bottomof Walden Pond, I surveyed it carefully, before the ice broke up,early in ’46, with compass and chain and sounding line. There havebeen many stories told about the bottom, or rather no bottom,of this pond, which certainly had no foundation for themselves.It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessnessof a pond without taking the trouble to sound it. I have visitedtwo such Bottomless Ponds in one walk in this neighborhood. Manyhave believed that Walden reached quite through to the other sideof the globe. Some who have lain flat on the ice for a long time,looking down through the illusive medium, perchance with wateryeyes into the bargain, and driven to hasty conclusions by the fearof catching cold in their breasts, have seen vast holes “intowhich a load of hay might be driven,” if there were any body todrive it, the undoubted source of the Styx and entrance to theInfernal Regions from these parts. Others have gone down from thevillage with a “fifty-six” and a wagon load of inch rope, but yethave failed to find any bottom; for while the “fifty-six” wasresting by the way, they we paying out the rope in the vainattempt to fathom their truly immeasurable capacity formarvellousness. But I can assure my readers that Waldenhas a reasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at anunusual, depth. I fathomed it easily with a cod-line and a stoneweighing about a pound and a half, and could tell accurately whenthe stone left the bottom, by having to pull so much harder beforethe water got underneath to help me. The greatest depth wasexactly one hundred and two feet; to which may be added the fivefeet which it has risen since, making one hundred and seven. Thisis a remarkable depth for so small an area; yet not an inch of itcan be spared by the imagination. What if all ponds were shallow?Would it not react on the minds of men? I am thankful that thispond was made deep and pure for a symbol. While men believe inthe infinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.

THE 56-POUND SHOTPUT

TIMELINE OF WALDEN




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/57/1857_56poundCannonball



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View Henry Thoreau’s personal working drafts of his surveys courtesy of AT&T and the Concord Free Public Library:

http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/Thoreau_Surveys.htm

(The official copy of this survey of course had become the property of the person or persons who had hired this Concord town surveyor to do their surveying work during the 19th Century. Such materials have yet to be recovered.)

View this particular personal working draft of a survey in fine detail:

http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_surveys/133a.htm

http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_surveys/133b.htm




http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/Thoreau_Surveys.htm

http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_surveys/133a.htm

http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_surveys/133b.htm




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April: Splitting his forces, General Winfield Scott took the major part of the US Army out of the camp besieging Veracruz and began the march toward the capital, Mexico City. “Fearless,” he had decided to repeat the tactic

of Cortez, of burning his ships behind him so to speak. Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington commented, when he heard of this, that

Well, he was mistaken about this, General Scott’s army of invasion was lost neither in the map sense nor in the military sense, they were marching along the road from an eternal shame to a historic victory, but the point is not that Wellington’s military judgment was overtaken by history, the point is that, clearly, the Duke felt it was just as important to avoid strategic stupidity as to avoid tactical fearfulness. He refused to take seriously his own solecism about fear being the only thing to avoid! –No, this noble Brit “lets-Duke-it-out,” who had invented a chair that enabled him to read backward (look it up), was not that backward!

1847

Scott is lost — he cannot capture the city and hecannot fall back upon his base.

WAR ON MEXICO






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“[A nation is] a group of people united by a mistakenview about the past and a hatred of their neighbors.” — E. Renan, QU’EST-CE QU’UNE NATION?

March 11, 1882







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The junk Keying arrived from Hong Kong via St. Helena and New-York to Gravesend on the Thames near London, and there at the East India Dock was visited by Charles Dickens and the Duke of Wellington. The purpose of the voyage was publicity, for the common impression in the British ruling caste was, that if “viewed as a place of trade,” this Hong Kong outpost of empire must be considered to be “small, barren, un-healthy and valueless.” There were too many Chinese present in the community, and compared to Sierra Leone it was “less healthy, less amusing and less near England.” Also, the English could not help but note that their proud contempt for all things Chinese was matched by the proud contempt that these superstitious and ignorant subjects of the Celestial Empire held for all things European.

After its tourist potential was more or less exploited, the junk was sailed to Liverpool and torn apart, and its ironwood used to construct ferry-boats for the River Mersey. A mandarin tourist aboard this junk would remain in England for a period, would attend the opening of the Crystal Palace in 1851 by Queen Victoria, and –as he was taken to be an Ambassador of the Celestial Empire– for the official portrayal of the solemn event would

1848

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: I have always endeavored to acquire strict businesshabits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is withthe Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast,in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You will export sucharticles as the country affords, purely native products, much iceand pine timber and a little granite, always in native bottoms.These will be good ventures. To oversee all the details yourselfin person; to be at once pilot and captain, and ownerand underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to readevery letter received, and write or read every letter sent;to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be uponmany parts of the coast almost at the same time; –often therichest freight will be discharged upon a Jersey shore;– to beyour own telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speakingall passing vessels bound coastwise; to keep up a steady despatchof commodities, for the supply of such a distant and exorbitantmarket; to keep yourself informed of the state of the markets,prospects of war and peace every where, and anticipate thetendencies of trade and civilization, –taking advantage of theresults of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and allimprovements in navigation;– charts to be studied, the positionof reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever,and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the errorof some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that shouldhave reached a friendly pier, –there is the untold fate of LaPerouse;– universal science to be kept pace with, studying thelives of all great discoverers and navigators, great adventurersand merchants, from Hanno and the Phoenicians down to our day;in fine, account of stock to be taken from time to time, to knowhow you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties of a man, –such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret,and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.

JEAN-FRANÇOIS DE GALOUP




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/WALDEN/PeopleOfWALDEN.pdf



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be positioned in front of the British diplomatic corps.

The following rancid remarks have been extracted from OLD AND NEW LONDON by Thomas Walford (Cassells, 1898):

Not very far from where “The Folly” was moored a century and ahalf ago, there was seen anchored in our own day a wonderfulvessel which had crossed the Indian Ocean and sailed round theCape of Good Hope, and so up the whole length of the Atlantic —a veritable “Chinese junk.” It made the voyage, small as it was,without suffering wreck or disaster, and arrived in the Thamesin 1848.For a time it lay off Blackwall, where it was visited bythousands — among others, by Charles Dickens. Afterwards, whenthe London season began, it was brought up just above WaterlooBridge, and moored off the Strand.Dickens describes the impression of a visit to the junk as atotal, entire change from England to the Celestial Empire.“Nothing,” he writes, “is left but China. How the flowery regionever came into this latitude and longitude is the first thingone admires” and it is certainly not the least of the marvel.As Aladdin’s palace was transported hither and thither by therubbing of a lamp, so the crew of Chinamen aboard the keyingdevoutly believed that their “good ship would turn up quite safeat the desired port if they only tied red rags enough upon themast, rudder, and cable.” Somehow they did not succeed. Perhapsthey ran short of rag; at any rate they had not enough on boardto keep them above water; and to the bottom they would haveundoubtedly gone if it had not been for the skill and coolnessof half-a-dozen English sailors, who brought them over the oceanin safety.Well, if there be anyone thing in the world that thisextraordinary craft is not at all like, that thing is a ship ofany kind. So narrow, so long, so grotesque, so low in the middle,so high at each end, like a china pen-tray; with no rigging,with nowhere to go aloft; with mats for sails, great warpedcigars for masts, dragons and sea-monsters disporting themselvesfrom stem to stern, and on the stern a gigantic cock ofimpossible aspect, defying the world (as well he may) to producehis equal — it would look more at home on the top of a public







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building, or at the top of a mountain, or in an avenue of trees,or down in a mine, than afloat on the water. As for the Chineselounging on the deck, the most extravagant imagination wouldnever dare to suppose them to be mariners. Imagine a ship’s crewwithout a profile amongst them, in gauze pinafores and plaitedhair, wearing stiff clogs a quarter of a foot thick in the sole,and lying at night in little scented boxes, like backgammon orchess pieces, or mother-of-pearl counters!But, by Jove! Even this is nothing to your surprise when you getdown into the cabin.There you get into a torture of perplexity; as, what became ofall those lanterns hanging to the roof, when the junk was outat sea; whether they dangled there, banging and beating againsteach other, like so many jester’s baubles; whether the idol ChinTee, of the eighteen arms, enshrined in a celestial Punch’sshow, in the place of honour, ever tumbled about in heavyweather; whether the incense and the joss-stick still burntbefore her, with a faint perfume found a little thread of smoke,while the mighty waves were roaring all around? Whether thatpreposterous tissue-paper umbrella in the corner was alwaysspread, as being a convenient maritime instrument for walkingabout the decks with in a storm? Whether all the cool and shinylittle chairs and tables were continually sliding about andbruising each other, and if not, why not? Whether I or anybodyon the voyage ever read those two books printed in characterslike bird-cages and fly-traps?Whether the mandarin passenger, He Sing, who had never been tenmiles from home in his life before, lying sick on a bamboo couchin a private china closet of his own (where he is now perpetuallywriting autographs for inquisitive barbarians), ever began todoubt the potency of the Goddess of the Sea, whose counterfeitpresentiment, like a flowery monthly nurse, occupies thesailor’s joss-house in the second gallery?Whether it is possible that the second mandarin, or the artistof the ship, Sam Sing, Esquire, RA. of Canton, can ever go ashorewithout a walking-staff in cinnamon, agreeably to the usage oftheir likenesses in British tea-shops? Above all, whether thehoarse old ocean could ever have been seriously in earnest withthis floating toy-shop; or had merely played with it inlightness of spirit roughly, but meaning no harm — as the bulldid with another kind of china-shop on St. Patrick’s-day in themorning.

April 10, Monday: In Poland, Prussian troops attacked insurgents near Tremeszna.

In Sweden, Gustaf Sparre replaced Arvid Posse as Prime Minister for Justice, and Gustaf Nils Algernon Stierneld replaced Albrecht Ihre as Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The Illinois and Michigan Canal opened between Chicago and LaSalle, connecting the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River (this was an enormous improvement, as henceforward any freshwater species that had become a pest in the Great Lakes could also plague the Mississippi River basin and any freshwater species that had become a pest in the Mississippi River basin could also plague the Great Lakes).27

Joseph Pulitzer, journalist and philanthropist, was born.

27. Fast forward to the opening of the Suez Canal, whereby any saltwater species in the Red Sea could flow downstream to disrupt the saltwater biota of the Mediterranean.






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At Kennington Common an unarmed crowd of some 30,000 Chartist assembled for a march upon Westminster and the houses of the British Parliament. They were to be led by one Feargus O’Connor, who intended to use the occasion to make an impressive delivery of a petition bearing 5.7 million signatures to the House of Commons.

Facing this threat were a rabble of 170,000 “special constables” hastily deputized by representatives of the government and dispatched into the thoroughfares for the occasion. But, also, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington had caused seven full regiments of the British regular army to be dispositioned at various hidden locations in London, all government offices had been secured for the day, the Bank of England had been







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sandbagged, and the General Post Office had been barricaded and its employees supplied with weapons. Lord

Palmerston had sealed off the entrances to the Foreign Office with bound copies of the Times of London, –which would surely prove as effective in stopping bullets as in stopping thought– and was handing around among his clerks a variety of cutlasses and antique muskets.28 When Mr O’Connor arrived in Kennington Common, he immediately concurred with the Chief of Police that the affair was hopeless, and, rather than lead his marchers toward the forces assembled against them, began a rambling speech in which he very gradually revealed to that assembly of citizens that no such threatening movement was going to be authorized. Finally the determination of the Chartists was dissolved in a fortuitously steady, heavy London rain, enough to send even the diehards into the available pubs for a nip.29

MY CHILDREN, HAVE NOW FOR A QUARTER OF A CENTURY BEEN MIXED UP WITH THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT — IN IRELAND SINCE 1822, AND IN ENGLAND FROM THE YEAR 1833. I HAVE ALWAYS, IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT, CONTENDED FOR YOUR RIGHTS, AND I HAVE RECEIVED MORE THAN 100 LETTERS, TELLING ME NOT TO COME HERE TODAY, OR MY LIFE WOULD BE SACRIFICED. MY ANSWER WAS, THAT I WOULD RATHER BE STABBED IN THE HEART THAN ABSTAIN FROM BEING IN MY PLACE. AND MY CHILDREN, FOR YOU ARE MY CHILDREN, AND I AM ONLY YOUR FATHER AND BAILIFF; BUT I AM YOUR FOND FATHER AND YOUR UNPAID BAILIFF. MY BREATH IS NEARLY GONE, AND I WILL ONLY SAY, WHEN I DESERT YOU MAY DESERT ME. YOU

28. At long last Henry John Temple, Lord Palmerston (1784-1865), “Lord Pumice-Stone,” had found a situation entirely to his liking.29. According to Waldo Emerson at the time, this made the man a “swindling leader” all set to “betray them in public and cheat them in private,” although it would seem to me at this distance that the way Mr O’Connor handled the situation probably saved some lives. Interestingly, there’s a very interestingly similar scenario depicted in the Martin Scorcese movie “The Last Temptation of Christ,” with Jesus Christ playing the role of Feagus O’Connor — check out this movie and see if you don’t agree. Carlyle, who had attended in order to witness some shedding of blood, was disappointed at Mr O’Connor’s restraint.

THOMAS CARLYLE






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HAVE BY YOUR CONDUCT TODAY MORE THAN REPAID ME FOR ALL I HAVE DONE FOR YOU, AND I WILL GO ON CONQUERING UNTIL YOU HAVE THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE’S CHARTER BECOMES THE LAW OF THE LAND.

This manufactured event had been in planning for some time. It was in Spring 1848 that O’Connor had decided on this new strategy as a combination of several tactics: a large public meeting, a procession, and the presentation of a petition to the House of Commons. He alerted the prime minister, Lord John Russell, to the fact that after the speeches he intended to lead the large crowd to Parliament to present a petition. This put the Lord in an awkward position because he had all his political life been campaigning for freedom of speech and for the universalization of suffrage. However, since becoming prime minister in 1846, he had been unable to persuade the majority of MPs in the House of Commons to indulge in parliamentary reform. Afraid that the meeting would result in a riot, Russell decided to make sure that there would be 8,000 soldiers and 150,000 special constables on duty in London that day. Russell asked O’Connor to guarantee that he would not attempt to move the crowd to the vicinity of the Parliament building. The meeting did take place without violence. O’Connor would claim that over 300,000 people had shown up, but others described this as a vast exaggeration. (The government alleged that the crowd had amounted to but 15,000 and the Times reporter estimated it at 20,000. Even a sympathetic paper would not go so far as to agree to 50,000. O’Connor also told the assembly that their petition contained 5,706,000 signatures, but, when examined at the Parliament it counted out at 1,975,496 and many of these were clear forgeries.) O’Connor’s many enemies in the parliamentary reform movement would accuse him of having destroyed their credibility as Chartists. His affair at Kennington Common would turn out not to have at all helped the reform movement and Chartism in general would go into rapid decline.

May 15, Monday: After the Austrian government suppressed an opposition committee, a mass demonstration in Vienna forced the emperor to revoke the constitution and promise to convene a constitutional assembly. With this, the emperor fled from Vienna to Innsbruck.

The Austrian governor of Galicia ended serfdom in that province.

10,000 Parisian workers (among them George Sand), carrying a petition to support Poland, marched from the Place de la Bastille to the National Assembly. They stormed the National Assembly hall and ordered the dissolution of the assembly, forming a provisional government led by Armand Barbès. With the arrival of the National Guard, the insurrection failed and Barbès was arrested.

40,000 Romanians met near Blaj northwest of Bucharest and instituted liberal reforms similar to those of Hungary, although adding various nationalistic and religious demands.

Riots occurred at the first convening of the Parliament in Naples. King Ferdinando would use this as an excuse to repress liberal reforms.

Frédéric François Chopin gave his initial London performance in Stafford (Lancaster) House at a dinner given for attenders of the christening of Alexandrina, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland. The guests included Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, and the Prince of Prussia (later Kaiser Wilhelm I). The Queen would record in her diary that on this evening she heard “some pianists.”

Carl Wernicke was born. Wernicke gained fame with his work on the neurology of aphasia, which he published in 1874 at the age of 26. Wernicke’s aphasia, as one form came to be known, was attributed to temporal lobe damage, resulting in impairment in speech comprehension and, by extension, speech production. The critical area of the temporal lobe is now known as Wernicke’s area.30

30. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994

PSYCHOLOGY







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The world’s first prefab structure was being set in place, by Joseph Paxton, in the Hyde Park district of London, and was being termed “the Crystal Palace.”31

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, never a friend of “the people,” who, in the early days of Owenite socialism had been terrified, and had contemplated repressive measures,

convinced himself at this time that visiting this new “Great Exhibition of Art and Industry” prefabricated structure would bring millions of common folk into the capitol city on a pretext, where upon a signal these commoners could begin a general insurrection against their government:

One wonders what the fearless duke would have done, had we warned him that the new under-ocean electric cable was intended to suck all the vitality out of English mattresses!

There was a great exhibition of the works of industry of all nations in the “Crystal Palace” of London. Alexander Catlin Twining’s MANUFACTURE OF ICE BY MECHANICAL MEANS ON A COMMERCIAL SCALE (BY STEAM AND WATER POWER) was just being published. In this Crystal Palace, Thomas Masters was churning ice for the benefit of the Queen, and others.

The peculiar thing about this Crystal Palace, the world’s first prefab structure, was that its modular construction of bolted ironwork inset with precut panes of glass was such as to reveal rather than conceal the materials and processes of its construction. Revealing rather than concealing was a shocking thing in the architecture of those times, but it would enable the structure later to be disassembled and re-erected in Sydenham, south of London, where it would serve as a museum and concert hall until its destruction by fire in 1936. The structure was not exclusively of iron and glass as has been supposed, for the longer arches of the roof had to be fashioned of laminated wood. Expendable formations of British soldiers were being marched through the galleries to make sure the novel structure would not fall apart under the vibrations generated by the expected mobs of higher-caste gawkers. It was such an untested design that it was trapping far too much light and heat. Inside, some of the exhibits were having to be placed inside tents, others under canopies.

1851

31. An accurate descriptor would have been “Prefabricated Palace,” but that doesn’t have as much of a Magic Kingdom ring to it. Paxton would become a “Sir.”

The people are rotten to the Core.... They willplunder, destroy and annihilate all Property in theCountry.

I am also well informed that at this very time thereis a deep laid plot going on in London to overturn theinstitutions of this country. Upon this subject I havebeen in communication with the Home office and thepolice....

COOLNESS




He’s sounding like a recent candidate for the Republican nomination for President, Pat Buchanan.

Hey, big boy, don’t forget about the international Jews!



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Valued at over $700,000, the Mountain of Light “Kohinoor” diamond was displayed at the Crystal Palace Exposition in London.

After all the work [sic] which has been made about thiscelebrated diamond, our readers will be rather surprised to hearthat many people find a difficulty in bringing themselves tobelieve, from its external appearance, that it is anything buta piece of common glass. Amid all the adventures that havebefallen it, there is perhaps none more odd than its genuinenessshould now be doubted. Yet so it is, that the “Mountain of Light”has been shockingly ill-used in the cutting, and that when






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placed in the open light of day, without any arrangements todraw forth its brilliancy, it does not sparkle and gleam likeother jewels of the kind. To obviate this disadvantage, anddemonstrate to the world that the Koh-i-noor is a veritablediamond, it has been surrounded by a canopy or tent, the interiorof which is lighted with gas, to develop its beauties as a gemof the purest water.







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So many were disappointed that this thing looked exactly like a hunk of glass, that Queen Victoria would order that M. Coster of Amsterdam recut it from its original Indian style, transforming it into the modified table shape known as the “brilliant.”

The Duke of Wellington himself first pressed the stone against the grinding wheel. This would of necessity reduce the stone from 186 to 108.93 carats. The grinding, which took place in London and was powered by a steam engine, required a crew of four in addition to the supervisor, and 37 days of labor at 12 hours per day. The wheel, at about 2,000 rpm, would generate so much heat that the solder in which the stone was embedded would melt, and at one point the oil in the wheel’s surface would catch fire. The firm would receive £8,000 for its work.32

WALDEN: White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surfaceof the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed,and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carriedoff by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads ofemperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and oursuccessors forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamondof Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a market value; theycontain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how muchmore transparent than our characters, are they! We never learnedmeanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before thefarmer’s door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wildducks come. Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her.The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony withthe flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with the wildluxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far fromthe towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth.

LAKES OF LIGHT






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32. This “brilliant” cut, a modification of the table cut, had been determined by Vincenzio Peruzzi to generate more refraction and reflection of light than either the original table cut or the cut known as the rose (for instance, the Grand Mogul of 208 carats). A brilliant has 32 facets above its girdle (its greatest diameter) and 24 below, with a flat plane on top called the “table,” and a smaller table below called the “culet.” The proportions generally used are “From the table to the girdle one-third, and from the girdle to the culet two-thirds of the total thickness; the diameter of the table four-ninths of that of the girdle; the culet one-fifth of the table.”







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Benjamin Disraeli delivered to the House of Commons a eulogium upon the Duke of Wellington and someone noticed that his speech bore a very strong resemblance to an obituary article on Marshal St Cyr, that had been written many years previously by the French politician Adolph Thiers. Robert Blake would attribute this “unconscious” plagiarism to “a curious trick of memory.”

(The Iron Duke had died at his home, Walmer Castle in Kent, on September 14th, and was being buried in Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.)

September 14, Tuesday: Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington dies at Walmer Castle.

1852






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The world’s first prefab structure, termed “the Crystal Palace,”33 assembled in 1851 in the Hyde Park district of London by Joseph Paxton and the home of the “Great Exhibition of Art and Industry,” reassembled in 1853 in Sydenham Park to the south of London, finally burned down. We see that it has turned out that Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, had been mistaken, or had been paranoid or something — for the common people of England had not utilized this as a pretext for descending upon London and staging a revolution. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins had constructed full-scale concrete restorations of the prehistoric reptiles known to that time, for the relocated exhibit. —For the very biggest and newest, what but the very biggest and oldest? His reconstruction required, as he put it, 640 bushels of artificial stone. Here is his drawing showing all his dinosaur restorations, including the marine reptiles, in their park settings. To the left he depicts his two Iguanodon, at the center his Hylaeosaurus, and to the right his Megalosaurus:34

Near Johannesburg, Robert Broom found the 1st skull of an adult australopithecine.

Vitamin D3 was chemically characterized when it was shown to result from the ultraviolet irradiation of 7-dehydrocholesterol. In the same year, the elusive antirachitic component of cod liver oil was shown to be identical to this newly characterized vitamin D3. This established that the antirachitic substance “vitamin” D was chemically a seco-steroid.

1936

33. An accurate descriptor would have been “Prefabricated Palace,” but that didn’t have enough of a Magic Kingdom ring to it.34. The Iron Duke was not himself cast in concrete. (He’s in Westminster Abby even if you don’t visit.) The saurian wannabees are still standing around to the south of London. (They’re there even if you don’t visit.)

VITAMIN-DRICKETS







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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2016. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <[email protected]>.

Prepared: April 15, 2016

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST





Well, tomorrow is such and such a date and so it began on that date in like 8000BC? Why 8000BC, because it was the beginning of the current interglacial -- or what?

Bearing in mind that this is America, "where everything belongs," the primary intent of such a notice is to prevent some person or corporate entity from misappropriating the materials and sequestering them as property for censorship or for profit.


artist

Sticky Note

Unmarked set by artist


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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in







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the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <[email protected]>. Arrgh.






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ARTHUR WELLESLEY, 1ST DUKE OF WELLINGTON - Kouroo