bravery of the two allied armies, and by the talents of their Generals, was obtained one of the greatest and most decisive victories recorded in history.

"The loss of the Allies on these bloody days of the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th of June may amount to 30,000 men killed and wounded. Among the superior officers of the English Army killed, were the Duke of Brunswick Oels, Generals Picton, Ponsonby, and Fuller, the Dukes Aids de Camps, the Colonels Gordon and Canning; wounded, the Quarter-Master General of the Army De Lancey, General Sir Barnes, the Prince Royal of the Netherlands, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the Hereditary Prince of Nassau Weilburg (slightly) and of the Duke of Wellington's Suite, the Austrian General, Baron Vinçent, the Russian General, Count Pozzo di Borgo, and almost all the Duke's Aids de Camps.

"The loss of the Prussian Army on the 18th is not mentioned, no reports having been made. On the 15th and 16th there were among the killed, Colonel Von Thieman ; wounded, Generals, Von Holzendorf and Juergass, and of the Suite of Prince Blucher, the English Colonel Harding, and several Aids de Camps. On the 16th the Princes horse fell under him pierced with balls, at the moment of an attack of Cavalry, a part of which rode over him. The contusions thereby occasioned, in the thigh and shoulders, did not however hinder him from leading on his troops in person, in the battle of the 18th.

"On the 19th, the Field Marshal had his head quarters already at Charleroi, and was pursuing the enemy with his accustomed ardour.

"Several French generals and officers came over after the battle, and their number was encreasing every moment.

SPANISH ACCOUNT.

General Miguel Alava, in quality of Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of the Netherlands, from the King of Spain, having shared the dangers of the battle, by the side of the Duke of Wellington, has addressed his court, under the date of the 20th of June, from Brussels, giving an account of the battles of Quatre Bras, and Waterloo. The following is a Copy of his Dispatch to Don Pedro Cevallos, principal Secretary of State to Ferdinand VII. (First Published in this Work, as a Translation of the whole Gazette, and which, in other accounts, is only given in part.)

Supplement to the Madrid Gazette of Thursday, 13th July, 1815. .

Lieutenant-General of the Royal Armies, Don Miguel de Alava, Minister Plenipotentiary of His Majesty in Holland, has addressed to His Excellency Don Pedro Cevallos, First Secretary of State, the following letter:

Most Excellent Sir,

The short space of time that has intervened between the departure of the last post and the victory of the 18th, has not allowed me to write to your Excellency so diffusely as I could have wished; and although the army is, at this moment, on the point of marching, and I also am going to set out for the Hague to deliver my credentials, which I did not receive till this morning; nevertheless, I will give your Excellency some details respecting this important event, which, possibly, may bring us to the end of the war much sooner than we had any reason to expect.

I informed your Excellency, under date of the 16th inst. that Bonaparte, marching from Maubeuge and Philippeville, had attacked the Prussian posts on the Sambre, and that, after driving them from Charleroi, he had entered that city on the 15th.

On the 16th, the Duke of Wellington ordered his army to assemble on the point of Quatre Bras, where the roads cross from Namur to Nivelles, and from Brussels to Charleroi; and he himself proceeded to the same point, at seven in the morning.

On his arrival, he found the Hereditary Prince of Orange, with a division of his own army, holding the enemy in check, till the other divisions of the army were collected.

By this time, the British division, under General Picton, had arrived, with which the Duke kept up an unequal contest with more than 30,000 of the enemy, without losing an inch of ground. The British Guards, several regiments of infantry, and the Scottish Brigade, covered themselves with glory on this day; and Lord Wellington told me, on the following day, that he never saw his troops behave better, during the number of years he had commanded them.

The French Cuirassiers likewise suffered much on their part; for, confiding in their breast-plates, they approached the British squares so near, that they killed officers of the 42d regiment with their swords; but those valiant men, without flinching, kept up so strong a fire, that the whole ground was covered with the Cuirassiers and their horses.

In the meantime, the troops kept coming up; and the night put an end to the contest in this quarter.

During this time, Bonaparte was fighting, with the remainder of his forces, against Marshal Blucher, with whom he had commenced a bloody action at five in the afternoon; from which time, till nine in the evening, he was constantly repulsed by the Prussians, with great loss on both sides. But, at that moment, he made his cavalry charge with so much vigour, that they broke the Prussian line of infantry, and introduced disorder and confusion throughout.

Whether it was that Bonaparte did not perceive this incident, or that he had experienced a great loss; or, what is more probable, that Marshal Blucher had re established the battle, the fact is, that he derived no advantage whatever from this accident, and that he left him quiet during the whole of the night of the 16th.

Lord Wellington, who, by the morning of the 17th, had collected the whole of his army in the position of Quatre Bras, was combining his measures to attack the enemy, when he received a dispatch from Marshal Blucher, participating to him the events of the preceding

day, together with the incident that had snatched the victory out of his hands; adding, that the loss he had experienced was of such a nature, that he was forced to retreat to Wavre, on our left, where the corps of Bulow would unite with him, and that on the 19th he would be ready for any thing he might wish to undertake.

In consequence of this, Lord Wellington was obliged immediately to retreat, and this he effected in such a manner, that the enemy did not dare to interrupt him in it. He took up a position on Braine le Leud, in front of the great wood of Soignés, as he had previously determined, and placed his head quarters in Waterloo.

I joined the army on that morning, though I had received no orders to that effect, because I believed that I should thus best serve his Majesty, and at the same time fulfil your Excellency's directions; and this determination has afforded me the satisfaction of having been present at the most important battle that has been fought for many centuries, in its consequences, its duration, and the talents peace of of the chiefs who commanded on both sides, and because the the world, and the future security of all Europe, may be said to have depended on its result.

The position occupied by his lordship was very good; but, to wards the centre, it had various weak points, which required good troops to guard them, and much science and skill on the part of the general in chief. These qualifications were, however, to be found in abun dance in the British troops and their illustrious commander; and, it may be asserted, without offence to any one, that to them both belongs the chief part, or all the glory of this memorable day.

On the right of the position, and a little in advance, was a coun try-house, the importance of which Lord Wellington quickly perceived, because, without it, the position could not be attacked on that side, and it might therefore be considered as its key.

The Duke confided this important point to three companies of the English Guards, under the command of Lord Saltoun, and laboured, during the night of the 17th, in fortifying it as well as possible, covering its garden, and a wood which served as its park, with Nassau troops, as sharp-shooters.

In

At half past ten, a movement was observed in the enemy's line, and many officers were seen coming from and going to a particular point, where there was a very considerable corps of infantry, which we afterwards understood to be the Imperial Guard; here was Bonaparte in person, and from this point issued all the orders. the mean time, the enemy's masses were forming, and every thing announced the approaching combat, which began at half past elever the enemy attacking desperately with one of his corps, and, with hi usual shouts, the country-house on the right.

The Nassau troops found it necessary to abandon their post; but the enemy met such resistance in the house, that, though they surrounded it on three sides, and attacked it most desperately, they were compelled to desist from their enterprise, leaving a great Lord Wellington sent number of killed and wounded on the spot. fresh English troops, who recovered the wood and garden, and the combat ceased, for the present, on this side.

The enemy then opened a horrible fire of artillery from more

than 200 pieces, under cover of which Bonaparte made a general attack, from the centre to the right, with infantry and cavalry, in such numbers, that it required all the skill of his Lordship to post his troops, and all the good qualities of the latter, to resist the attack.

General Picton, who was with his division on the road from Brussels to Charleroi, advanced with the bayonet to receive them; but was unfortunately killed at the moment when the enemy, appalled by the attitude of this division, fired, and then fled.

The English Life Guards then charged with the greatest vigour, and the 49th and 105th French regiments lost their respective eagles in this charge, together with from 2 to 3,000 prisoners. A column of cavalry, at whose head were the Cuirassiers, advanced to charge the Life Guards, and thus save their infantry, but the Guards received them with the greatest valour, and the most sanguinary cavalry fight, perhaps, ever witnessed, was the consequence.

The French Cuirassiers were completely beaten, in spite of their cuirasses, by troops who had nothing of the sort, and lost one of their eagles in this conflict, which was taken by the heavy English cavalry, called the Royals.

About this time, accounts came that the Prussian corps of Bulow had arrived at St. Lambert, and that Prince Blucher, with the other, under the command of General Thielman (Ziethen) was advancing, with all haste, to take part in the combat, leaving the other two in Wavre, which had suffered so much in the battle of the 16th, in Fleurus. The arrival of these troops was so much the more necessary, in consequence of the forces of the enemy being more than triple, and our loss having been horrid during an unequal combat, from half past eleven in the morning, till five in the afternoon.

Bonaparte, who did not believe them to be so near, and who reckoned upon destroying Lord Wellington before their arrival, perceived that he had fruitlessly lost more than five hours, and that in the critical position in which he would soon be placed, there remained no other resource but that of desperately attacking the weak part of the English position, and thus, if possible, beat the Duke before his. right was turned and attacked by the Prussians.

Henceforward, therefore, the whole was a repetition of attacks by cavalry and infantry, supported by more than 300 pieces of artillery, which unfortunately made horrible ravages in our line, and killed and wounded officers, artillerists, and horses, in the weakest part of the position.

The enemy, aware of this destruction, made a charge with the whole cavalry of his guard, which took some pieces of cannon that could not be withdrawn; but the Duke, who was at this point, charged them with three battalions of English and three of Brunswickers, and compelled them in a moment to abandon the artillery, though we were unable to withdraw them for want of horses; nor did they dare to advance to recover them.

At last, about seven in the evening, Bonaparte made a last effort, and putting himself at the head of his guards, attacked the above point of the English position with such vigour, that he drove back the Brunswickers who occupied part of it; and, for a moment, the victory was undecided, and even more than doubtful.

The Duke, who felt that the moment was most critical, spoke to the Brunswick troops with that ascendancy which every great man possesses, made them return to the charge, and, putting himself at their head, again restored the combat, exposing himself to every kind of personal danger.

Fortunately, at this moment, he perceived the fire of Marshal Blucher, who was attacking the enemy's right with his usual impetuosity; and the moment of decisive attack being come, the Duke put himself at the head of the English Foot-Guards, spoke a few words to them, which were replied to by a general hurrah, and his Grace himself leading them on with his hat, they marched at the point of the bayonet, to come to close action with the Imperial Guard. But the latter began a retreat, which was soon converted into flight, and the most complete rout ever witnessed by military men. Entire columns, throwing down their arms and cartouch-boxes, in order to escape the better, abandoned the spot on which they had been formed, where we took possession of 150 pieces of cannon. The rout at Vittoria was not comparable to this, and it only resembles it, inasmuch as on both occasions, they lost all the train of artillery and stores of the army, as well as all the baggage.

The Duke followed the enemy as far as Genappe, where he found the respectable Blucher, and both embraced in the most cordial manner, on the royal road of Charleroi; but finding himself in the same point as the Prussians, and that his army stood in need of rest after so dreadful a struggle, he left to Blucher the charge of following up the enemy, who swore, that he would not leave them a moment of rest. This he is now doing, and yesterday, at noon, he had reached Charleroi, from whence, at night, he intended to proceed on after them.

This is, in substance, what has happened on this memorable day; but the consequences of this event are too visible for me to detain myself in stating them.

Bonaparte, now tottering on his usurped throne, without money and without troops to recruit his armies, has received so mortal a blow, that, according to the report of the prisoners, no other resource is left him, than to cut his own throat.'

For this reason, they say, they never saw him expose his person so much, and that he seemed to seek death, in order not to survive a defeat fraught with such fatal consequences to him.

I told your Excellency, under date of the 16th, that his mancuvre appeared to me extremely daring before such generals as Blucher and the Duke: the event has fully justified my prediction. For this reason, I conceive, that his executing it has arisen from nothing else than desperation, at the appearance of the enormous troops about to attack him on all quarters of France, and in order to give one of his customary blows before the Russians and Austrians came up.

His military reputation is lost for ever, and, on this occasion, there is no treason on the part of the Allies, nor bridges blown up before their time, on which to throw the blame: all the shame will fall upon himself.

Numerical superiority, superiority of artillery, all was in his favour; and his having commenced the attack, proves that he had sufficient means to execute it.