fallen by the side of thirty thousand of their own brave soldiers!  It has been a dear-earned victory to England; a dread tragedy, in the small circumference of three miles!  The veterans of the Peninsular campaign assert that those scenes of carnage were less cruel.  This city, where pleasure so lately reigned, now presents only the images of death. Vraiment nous respirons la mort dans les rues! L’Hotel-de-Ville, the hospitals, and some of the churches, are already occupied by the wounded; wagons full remaining in the streets, and many sitting on the steps of the houses, looking round in vain for immediate succour!

Our escape has been mavellous, for Napoleon’s plan was to penetrate to Bruxelles, and to surprise the Duke and his staff at the ball, when surrounded by the British belles; for he had his spies to report even the hour of our pastimes, and he reckoned upon a rise of the Belgians in his favour.  For three days and nights we expected the enemy to enter; treachery reigned around us, and false reports augmented our alarms, as we knew the terrible numbers of the French forces.  It was Bulow and his corps that protected us from that calamity.  On the Saturday we took refuge within the city, from the scenes of horror before our villa.  Baggage-wagons of the different regiments advancing—­the rough chariots of agriculture, with the dead and the dying, disputing for the road—­officers on horseback wounded!  I spoke to one:  ’twas Colonel C——­, of the Scotch brigade; he replied with his wonted urbanity to my inquiries—­gave me his hand—­“I am shot through the body—­adieu for ever!” He left me petrified with horror, and I saw him no more!  One hour afterwards I sent to his apartment—­the gallant veteran had expired as they lifted him from his horse!

I could not abandon the Baroness and her children in such an hour; but I must ever gratefully recollect the kind offers of asylum made to me by my Belgian acquaintance, and for months, they said, had the battle been lost.  It is truly pitiable to see the wounded arriving on foot; a musket reversed, or the ramrod, serving for a staff of support to the mutilated frame, the unhappy soldier trailing along his wearied limbs, and perhaps leading a more severely-wounded comrade, whose discoloured visages declare their extreme suffering;—­their uniforms either hanging in shreds, or totally despoiled of them by those marauders who ravage a field of battle in merciless avidity of plunder and murder.  These brave fellows, these steady warriors, so redoubtable a few hours since, are now sunk into the helplessness of infancy, the feebleness of woman, over whom man arrogates a power that may not be disputed, but whose solacing influence in the hour of tribulation and sickness they are willing to claim.

The Belgian females are in full activity, acting with noble benevolence.  They are running from door to door begging linen, and entreating that it may be scraped for lint; others beg matrasses.