66

and during the hostile sauve qui peut.” In a

fate of the conflict by their timely arrival on the field. Instead, however, of a friendly junction with the French, the angry flashes of cannon soon demonstrated that foes instead of friends had met. The flank of the French army recoiled upon the main body, shock, the fatal cry was uttered, few moments, the moving masses of French soldiery, advancing in formidable array to the attack, were thown into confusion, retreating from before their foes. Instantly the scene was changed, and the solid English squares expanding their ranks into sweeping lines, took advantage of the panic, and rushed forward from their stations, clearing the vale before them, until arrested by a few French battalions, who in turn had adopted the last desperate manœuvre of their enemies, and had formed squares to preserve themselves from instant destruction. These few squares, disheartened, were soon broken, and joined in the general flight.

On the next morning, as the sun arose and rendered objects distinguishable, the fields before us had the appearance of being strewed with various bright colors like the patches of a flower garden, the scarlet uniforms of the dead English soldiers, and the green, blue, and buff, of the Russians, French and Belgians, all commingled, biended their various dyes, side by side, with here and there the parti-colored bodies of prostrate horses.

Whilst the guide was thus giving a particular account of the scenes of the battle, illustrating each part of his narrative by pointing at the spots on which the combattants stood, the visitant on the field of Waterloo may readily picture to himself the whole living array of armed men and steeds, and even the bursting vollies of fire flashing from the batteries; but the delusion soon vanishes, when the eye dwells on the now quiet landscape, and on the luxuriant crops of grain, covering the ridges, rustling and

BURIAL OF DEAD SOLDIERS.

185

waving in the wind, instead of the dancing plumes and pennons. The peasants appear slowly moving, engaged in the labors of agriculture, where occurred the shocks of rushing warriors; whilst the whole country around, sleeping in silence beneath a bright sunshine, seems to be the very abode of the peaceful. It is now, indeed, the place of rest for thousands of human beings, every sod being here truly a soldier's sepulchre. In the little valley between the ridges on which the two armies were drawn up, more than 20,000 soldiers, friends and foes, the horse and his rider, are thrown promiscuously into large holes or pits, many of them without being stripped of their clothes by those who buried the slain, who are in the battle field the heirs of the dead soldiers, so great was their haste to accomplish their task. Some of the spots appear elevated by slight mounds of earth, perceptibly swelling above the general level of the unbroken earth around them, from the accumulation of bones beneath the surface,

"Where sleep the relics of the dead,
For whom the frequent tear is shed.”

Many human skulls even remain deprived of the rites of sepulture, bleaching in the rains and winds. The romantic imagination, excited by the glory of a battle-field, becomes sobered, when one thus actually sees a soldier's skull rolled about like a pebble on the field, until finally crumbled into the mold that forms the clod of the valley. Poets, in their flowing numbers, too often depict the field of battle as a bed of glory to all who may rest upon it, without making any distinction in the causes in which the combatants may be engaged. Even the good Vicar of Wakefield, in the more sober prose of Goldsmith, after giving a paternal blessing to his son, a youthful soldier, exclaims, "Go, my boy, and if you fall, though distant, exposed, and unwept by those that love you, the most precious tears are those with which heaven bedews the unVOL. II. 17*

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WARS FOR BALANCE OF POWER

buried head of the soldier." Byron, in his masculine verse, does not class mere animal bravery, unaccompanied with the moral attributes of patriotic principles, among the most laudable qualities of the human race. The hireling Hessian and mercenary British soldier, who fell on the fields of America whilst aiding to crush the efforts of a free people, may have their ashes mingled with those of men who from principle poured out their blood in the cause of freedom; but to the former, the words of Byron truly apply.

"There shall they rot,-Ambition's honored fools!

Yes, honor decks the turf that wraps their clay !

Vain sophistry! in these behold the tools,

The broken tools, that tyrants cast away

By myriads."

So profusely was human blood here shed, that it actually fertilized the soil. The guide stated, that for two or three years, the stalks of grain were more lofty and luxuriant, nourished by the hidden aliment derived from the bodies of the slain; and the grass in such places exhibited a ranker growth and deeper green.

England has been prodigal of her blood and treasure to sustain visionary politicians in their schemes for keeping the "balance of power" in Europe poised with equal scales. As expressed by Addison,

""Tis Britain's care to watch on Europe's fate,

And hold in balance each contending state."

To preserve this much talked of balance of power, England has been involved in the debts contracted on account of foreign wars, which even now continue to embarrass that powerful country. As humorously depicted by the writer of an article in the Edinburgh Review, Englishmen have dearly paid for the glory of holding the scales.*

*We can inform the Americans what are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of glory:-Taxes upon every article that enters into the

The yard and garden of the farm house, called Hougoumont, present the most evident traces of the effects of war. The stone walls of the buildings stand desolate and in ruins, and the garden walls still exhibit the loop holes made during the heat of action by the troops who occupied

mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon every thing which is pleasant to see, hear, smell, or taste; taxes upon warmth, light, locomotion; taxes on every thing on the earth, on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at home; taxes on the raw materials; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man; taxes on the food which pampers man's appetite, and the drug which restores him to health; on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope that hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride; at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The school boy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back in his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, makes his will on an eight pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from two to nineteen per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtue is handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he is then gathered to his fathers-to be taxed no more."

In foreign wars for national glory and aggrandizement, the blood of British soldiers profusely poured out, has thus fertilized the soil of every region of the world. A touching interest is imparted to this subject by Mrs. Hemans, in the poem of the "Graves of a household," descriptive of the early affection of the youthful members of an English family, and of the subsequent dispersion of the band of brothers in the pursuit of arms in foreign climes. This picture of the desolation and private grief, thus carried home to many an English fireside, is rarely thought of by those who are admirers of the feats of English valor.

"They grew in beauty, side by side,

They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed far and wide,

By mount, and stream, and sea."

Even the great victor at Waterloo lost a brother-in-law on the field of battle on the banks of the Mississippi, and thousands of British soldiers

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NATIONAL MONUMENT AT WATERLOO.

it. The gate of the farm-yard is full of bullet-holes, and the bark of the trees is spotted with the scars of the balls.

Near this farm house the Belgian government are now employing four or five hundred men, and nearly two hundred horses to heap together the earth to form a vast mound, which like the everlasting hills, may endure to commemorate the victory. Judging from the broad area of the

sleep in death in the fields and beneath the dark forests and the blue waves of the lakes of the United States, as described in the poem above alluded

"One, midst the forests of the West

By a dark stream is laid,

The Indian knows his place of rest,

Far in the cedar shade."

The thankless return England has received from the continental statesmen for subsidizing half of Europe, for fighting the battles of the continent, and for the boon of the restoration of the Bourbons, after dethroning one of the very few monarchs legitimately elected by his subjects, must convince the English people for the future, that it will be better policy for them to improve their own condition than to attempt the fruitless task of endeavoring to improve that of their neighbors. "At Waterloo," observes the Quarterly Review, "all the nations were delivered, and the smallest among them was more benefitted than England was." This assertion will most certainly prove true in respect to pecuniary advantages derivable from a more extensive sale of manufactures; for although England, when she crushed the power of Napoleon, had one enemy less to contend with in the field, she gained thereby few real friends in the cabinets of her allies. The very measures of the Continental System, which Bonaparte, by the aid of his military coercion, could carry into only partial effect for the purpose of excluding the manufactures of England, have been adopted by all the Allies of England, and rigidly enforced on the principle of internal tariffs for the promotion of domestic industry. I have several times heard Englishmen speak of these restrictive tariffs, enforced by France and the other Allied Powers, as manifesting a want of gratitude to a country that has lavished so much treasure in upholding them. It has become the private interest of individual manufacturers and others, that the same restrictions, which Bonaparte by his military despotism enforced, should not be evaded at present. In the words of an English writer it may be asked, "what have the people of England gained by the battle of Waterloo ?"