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Updated: May 16, 2025
Our division got considerably reduced in numbers during the last attack; but Lord Wellington's fostering hand sent Sir John Lambert to our support, with the sixth division; and we now stood prepared for another and a more desperate struggle. Our battalion had already lost three officers killed, and six or seven wounded; among the latter were Sir Andrew Barnard and Colonel Cameron.
Coming into Lisbon on leave from his regiment, which was stationed at Abrantes, and formed part of the division under Sir Rowland Hill, the major happened into a company that contained at least one member who was hostile to Lord Wellington's conduct of the campaign, or rather to the measures which it entailed.
It was very unphilosophical and very absurd that a man who was only doing right should feel like a thief, shrink from the sight of other people, and lie instinctively. Fine distinctions were not in uncle Wellington's line, but he was struck by the unreasonableness of his feelings, and still more by the discomfort they caused him.
The duke of Brunswick, with impatience equalling that of Blucher, was the only one who had quitted the ball during the night and had hurried forward against the enemy. Napoleon, owing to Wellington's negligence, gained time to throw himself between him and Blucher and to prevent their junction; for he knew the spirit of his opponents.
It's for the sake of the country, quite as much as for his sake, and for that of his unpleasant father, that I'm glad. What sort of book-learning had Napoleon's marshals? Or, for the matter of that, Wellington's officers in the Peninsula, and at Waterloo?"
Napoleon was superior in artillery, but Wellington's soldiers had seen longer service in the field. They were his veterans from the Peninsular War, perhaps the stubbornest fighters in Europe. Napoleon's first plan was to double back the allied left on the centre. This involved the capture of La Haie Sainte, and, as a strategic corollary, the taking of Hougomont.
She said she had purposely avoided being acquainted with Madame de Stael in England, not knowing how she might be received by the Bourbons, to whom the Duchess was to be Ambassadress. She found that Madame de Stael was well received at the Bourbon Court, and consequently she must be received at the Duke of Wellington's.
In the third place, it was precisely at the time of the Duke of Wellington's return to Paris, that we received a direct and pressing overture from the Spanish Government, which placed us in the alternative of either affording our good offices to Spain, or of refusing them.
High as he rated Wellington's numbers, he had no doubt as to the result. "The enemy's army," he remarked just after breakfast, "outnumbers ours by more than a fourth; nevertheless we have ninety chances out of a hundred in our favour."
I wish we had men who would do the same. That's what I complain of. We want a better organised secret service, and men like Wellington's famous Captain Grant in the Peninsular War, bold, adroit, and quick-witted, ready to run any risks, but bound to get information in the long run. I wish I could lay my hands on a few Captain Grants."
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