still hesitated, and urged her poverty if we should deceive her. All at once however she took the money, adding, “ Eh bien ! Vous êtes Anglais, et les Anglais ne trompent jamais*.” For a nation of which such an impression prevailed so universally as to have reached a poor Belgic peasant, was reserved, in the justification of the ways of Heaven to man, the victory of Waterloo. ceive." Well! You are English, and the English never de CONCLUSION. WHEN detailing examples of the firmness of the British troops through the whole of the day of Waterloo, I purposely postponed some reflections which at the time forcibly presented themselves; that neither description nor narrative might suffer by interruption. The author of " the Character of the European armies," as formerly stated, gives to the British the credit of being the most intrepid people in Europe. It is a higher feeling than national vanity which prompts me to apply this opinion by asserting, that no nation in Europe would have triumphed, in the circumstances, at Waterloo, but the British; cer tainly the French least of any; supposing them exactly situated as the British were, on the defensive, with the same numbers and mixture of force, and subjected to attacks of the same violence and reiteration. They have not the steady principle. Their leaders know well, that to wait attack with them is always unsafe and generally fatal. To the momentum of their enthusiasm motion is necessary; the excitement, the abandon of forward overwhelming attack. and acclamations, carries them; and there follows a descent to a very ordinary character when the excitement fails, or the impetus is jarred or curtailed of its full swing by resistance. It is a hopeless expedient in such a crisis, to draw the engine back, to be wound up and let off again; for it will always return with decreasing force. An artificial stimulus of shouts The British character, on the other hand, is intrinsically strong; it is self-contained, it needs no external impulse; it is therefore as powerful in defence as in assault. This difference, strongly marked throughout the pe ninsular war, was never more striking than at Waterloo. When the French were attacked, they were broken, and fled from the same enemy which had withstood their utmost efforts for ten hours. It is impossible to imagine a more impressive picture than the British soldiery present,, of the exalted moral of a high-minded cultivated people; of a people whose multifarious; system, civil and military, is invigorated by manly energy, and founded in good sense and. honourable feeling; who exhibit a magnificent result of the progressive improvement of centuries, without one retrograde step; in whose undertakings in short, individual or na-, tional, failure must not be. The soldier of such a country must be invincible. His energy is just a portion directed to his own vocation of the steady enterprise which is found in every other. If his enemy makes great efforts, he must just make greater, "His spirit rising as his toils increase." "He must not be beaten." He is at the same time perfectly assured that, in the battle, the same determination actuates his right and lefthand neighbours; he can rely upon them as long as they keep their recollection and their feet; and in aid of all, comes the conclusion of his cooler moments, that firmness is his only safety; that flight is almost certain destruction; that it is much wiser to drive off the danger than to turn a defenceless back upon it. Yet this compound of feeling and reasoning belongs to a people of a very superior order alone. It is principle and good sense; totally different from the habit, the superstition, or the attachment, which rivets the Russian, in a state of comparative insensibility or passive endurance, to the spot allotted him; and brave and spirited as are the Prussian and the Austrian, it is but lately that they have been brought to the practical conclusion that it is really possible to make head against Frenchmen: a spell, thank heaven, now broken for ever. But |