But the grandest chapter of our experience, within the whole mail-coach service, was on those occasions when we went down from London with the news of victory.  A period of about ten years stretched from Trafalgar to Waterloo:  the second and third years of which period (1806 and 1807) were comparatively sterile; but the rest, from 1805 to 1815 inclusively, furnished a long succession of victories; the least of which, in a contest of that portentous nature, had an inappreciable value of position—­partly for its absolute interference with the plans of our enemy, but still more from its keeping alive in central Europe the sense of a deep-seated vulnerability in France.  Even to tease the coasts of our enemy, to mortify them by continual blockades, to insult them by capturing if it were but a baubling schooner under the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated from time to time a sullen proclamation of power lodged in a quarter to which the hopes of Christendom turned in secret.  How much more loudly must this proclamation have spoken in the audacity[9] of having bearded the elite of their troops, and having beaten them in pitched battles!  Five years of life it was worth paying down for the privilege of an outside place on a mail-coach, when carrying down the first tidings of any such event.  And it is to be noted that, from our insular situation, and the multitude of our frigates disposable for the rapid transmission of intelligence, rarely did any unauthorized rumor steal away a prelibation from the aroma of the regular dispatches.  The government official news was generally the first news.

From eight, P.M. to fifteen or twenty minutes later, imagine the mails assembled on parade in Lombard Street, where, at that time, was seated the General Post-Office.  In what exact strength we mustered I do not remember; but, from the length of each separate attelage, we filled the street, though a long one, and though we were drawn up in double file.  On any night the spectacle was beautiful.  The absolute perfection of all the appointments about the carriages and the harness, and the magnificence of the horses, were what might first have fixed the attention.  Every carriage, on every morning in the year, was taken down to an inspector for examination—­wheels, axles, linch-pins, pole, glasses, &c., were all critically probed and tested.  Every part of every carriage had been cleaned, every horse had been groomed, with as much rigor as if they belonged to a private gentleman; and that part of the spectacle offered itself always.  But the night before us is a night of victory; and behold! to the ordinary display, what a heart-shaking addition!—­horses, men, carriages—­all are dressed in laurels and flowers, oak leaves and ribbons.  The guards, who are his majesty’s servants, and the coachmen, who are within the privilege of the post-office, wear the royal liveries of course; and as it is summer (for all the land victories