Note Back to Main Text — THE END.

Wellington and Blucher, thus become quiet possessors of the field of battle, traversed it as masters. But at what expense of blood was this unjust triumph purchased! Never, no never, were the blows of the French more formidable or more deadly to their adversaries. Thirsting after blood and glory, they rushed daringly on the blazing batteries of their enemy; and seemed to multiply in number, to seek, attack, and pursue them in their inaccessible intrenchments. Thirty thousand English or Prussians[53] were sacrificed by their hands on that fatal day; and when it is considered, that this horrible carnage was the work of fifty thousand men[54], dying with fatigue and hunger, and striving in miry ground against an impregnable position and a hundred and thirty thousand fighting men, we cannot but be seized with sorrowful admiration, and decree to the vanquished the palm of victory.