Chapter 2

"MY DEAR LADY FRANCES,

"Lord Mount-Norris may remain in Bruxelles in perfect security. I yesterday, after a most severe and bloody contest, gained a complete victory, and pursued the French till after dark. They are in complete confusion; and I have, I believe, 150 pieces of cannon; and Blücher, who continued the pursuit all night, my soldiers being tired to death, sent me word this morning that he had got 60 more. My loss is immense. Lord Uxbridge, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, General Cooke, General Barnes, and Colonel Berkeley are wounded: Colonel De Lancey, Canning, Gordon, General Picton killed.[22] The finger of Providence was upon me, and I escaped unhurt.--Believe me, etc.,[23]

"WELLINGTON."

[Footnote 22: All the foregoing were on the General Staff of the Army or on the Duke's personal Staff.--ED.]

[Footnote 23: _Supplementary Despatches of the Duke of Wellington_, vol. x., p. 531.]

Captain Gronow--a subaltern of the 1st Guards at Waterloo--gives us the following glimpse of the Duke and his Staff, on the morning of the 18th, before the opening of the battle:--

"The road was ankle-deep in mud and slough; and we had not proceeded a quarter of a mile when we heard the trampling of horses' feet, and on looking round perceived a large cavalcade of officers coming at full speed. In a moment we recognised the Duke himself at their head. He was accompanied by the Duke of Richmond, and his son, Lord William Lennox. The entire Staff of the army was close at hand: the Prince of Orange, Count Pozzo di Borgo, Baron Vincent, the Spanish General Alava, Prince Castel Cicala, with their several aides-de-camp; Felton Hervey, Fitzroy Somerset, and De Lancey were the last that appeared. They all seemed as gay and unconcerned as if they were riding to meet the hounds in some quiet English county."[24]

[Footnote 24: _Recollections and Anecdotes_, by Captain Gronow, p. 186.]

Colonel Basil Jackson, who in 1815 was a lieutenant in the Royal Staff Corps, attached to the Quartermaster-General's department (see Dalton's _Waterloo Roll Call_, p. 38), gives the following interesting reminiscences of De Lancey on the 17th, at Quatre Bras, and during the retreat to Waterloo on the same day: "Some few changes were made in the disposition of the troops after the Duke of Wellington arrived on the ground, soon after daylight; arms were then piled, and the men, still wearied with their exertions of marching and fighting on the preceding day, lay down to snatch a little more rest. The Duke, too, after riding about and satisfying himself that all was as it should be, dismounted and stretched himself on the ground, very near the point where the road from Brussels to Charleroi crossed that leading from Nivelles to Namur, forming thereby the _Quatre Bras_....

"I remained for some time at a short distance from the great man, who occasionally addressed a few words to Lord Fitzroy Somerset, Sir E. Barnes, De Lancey, and others of his principal officers. He was then awaiting the return of Sir Alexander Gordon, who had gone off by the Namur road, some time between 6 and 7 o'clock, escorted by a squadron of the 10th Hussars. I had seen this detachment start at a round trot, but of course knew not the object of despatching it; which, as we learned afterwards, was to gain intelligence of Blücher's operations, whose defeat at Ligny we, that is, the army generally, were ignorant of, though the Duke was aware of it.

"I availed myself of this period of quietness to go and examine particularly the ground which had been so hardly contested the day before....

"Returning to the place where I had left the Duke when I set out on my ramble round the outposts, I found him still on the same spot; where he remained till Gordon and his escort came in with jaded horses, soon after 10 o'clock. On hearing his report, the Duke said a few words to De Lancey, who, observing me near him, directed me to go to Sir Thomas Picton, and tell him the orders were to make immediate preparation for falling back upon Waterloo....

"Just as the retreat commenced (about noon), I was ordered off to Mont St Jean, where I was told I should meet the Quartermaster-General; accordingly I made for Genappe, and as the high road was by that time filled with troops, being, moreover, careless of the farmer's interest, I took a short cut through the corn-fields, in such a direction as enabled me to strike into that village about its centre. There I found sad confusion prevailing; country waggons with stores, ammunition tumbrils, provision waggons, and wounded men, choked up the street, so that it was impossible for any one to pass. Aware of the great importance of freeing the passage at a time when the retiring troops might be pressed by the enemy, I at once set to work to remedy the disorder that prevailed. Let the reader picture to himself Police Constable 61 C posted at the pastry-cook's corner where Gracechurch Street enters Cheapside, at a moment when those passages, together with Bishopsgate and Leadenhall Streets are blocked up by 'buses, drays, waggons, carts, advertising locomotives, private carriages, and dodging cabs, when that unhappy functionary is vainly striving to restore order and clear the ways, and he will have some idea of the difficulty I experienced in executing my self-imposed task. Happily, I was acquainted with some pithy expressions in two or three languages, which were familiar to the ears of those I had to deal with; and these, together with the flat of my sword, proved very efficacious in the end. While in the thick of this scene of tumult and confusion, I felt some one clap me on the shoulder, and on looking round saw Sir W. De Lancey. 'You are very well employed here,' said he; 'remain, and keep the way clear for the troops; I shall not want you at Waterloo.' Encouraged by my chief's commendation I redoubled my efforts, and had soon the satisfaction of seeing the defile free."[25]

[Footnote 25: "Recollections of Waterloo," by a Staff Officer, in _United Service Journal_ for 1847, Part III., p. 11.]

"A week after the battle"--to quote again from the article by H. Manners Chichester in the _Dictionary of National Biography_--"De Lancey succumbed to his injuries, in a peasant's cottage in the village of Waterloo, where he was tenderly nursed by his young wife, who had joined him in Brussels a few days before the battle. According to another account, De Lancey was laid down at his own request when being conveyed to the rear, and so was left out untended all night and part of the next day. Rogers, in a note, states that he was killed by 'the wind of the shot,' his skin not being broken; and also that Lady De Lancey left a manuscript account of his last days."

This manuscript account was written in the first instance by Lady De Lancey for the information of her brother, Captain Basil Hall, R.N. The original manuscript has been lost sight of. An early copy, which was made by Mrs Basil Hall, is now in the possession of their grand-daughter, Lady Parsons. Copies would appear to have been made by members of the family at various times; but the existence of the narrative was apparently not known to Edward Floyd De Lancey, the historian of the family in Appleton's _Cyclopædia_. Besides the copy of the narrative made by Mrs Basil Hall, another copy came into the possession of the poet Rogers. This copy is now owned by W. Arthur Sharpe, Esq., Highgate, N. Both the above versions--which contain only slight variations--have been consulted in the present edition of the narrative.

Captain Basil Hall, R.N. (vide _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. xxiv., p. 58), was a well-known author in his day, his best known work being _Fragments of Voyages and Travels_, published in three series between 1831 and 1833, and frequently reprinted since.

In Volume II. of the first series, Captain Hall alludes to his first meeting with De Lancey. It occurred on board H.M.S. _Endymion_ on the morning of the 18th January 1809, when the British troops had all been safely embarked on the transports, the second day after the battle of Corunna.

Basil Hall--then a lieutenant in the navy--and De Lancey[26] struck up a great friendship on the _Endymion_, and the former introduced his soldier friend after the voyage home to his family in Scotland. The marriage of De Lancey six years afterwards to Basil Hall's sister Magdalene was a result of this introduction.

[Footnote 26: De Lancey was at this time a lieutenant-colonel and permanent assistant in the quartermaster-general's department (Army List, 1809, p. 323).

His first commission as a cornet in the 16th Light Dragoons bore the date 7th July 1792 (Army List, 1793, p. 50), when he was only eleven years old.

He was gazetted lieutenant in the same regiment on the 26th February 1793, and was subsequently transferred to the 80th Foot.

On the 20th October 1796 he was gazetted captain in the 17th Light Dragoons, of which regiment his uncle, General Oliver De Lancey, was then colonel.

He obtained a majority in the 45th (or Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot on the 17th October 1799. He was by this time eighteen years of age, and up to this date had probably no connection with the army at all beyond drawing his pay and figuring in the Army List. Even now he does not appear to have joined his regiment until its return from the West Indies, a year or two afterwards (_Dict. Nat. Biog._, vol. xiv., p. 305). His first uniform was probably that of the 45th Foot, and the portrait, forming the frontispiece of this volume, was in all likelihood painted on his first joining the regiment as a major in 1800 or 1801.

In the Army List of 1804 he is shown on page 31 as an assistant quartermaster-general. His actual regimental service can therefore hardly have exceeded two or three years. Until his death in 1815, he was continuously on the staff of the army in the quartermaster-general's department.]

The following extract from Captain Basil Hall's _Fragments of Voyages and Travels_, gives an account of the first meeting of the two friends on board the _Endymion_, and of the dramatic circumstances under which Captain Hall heard the news of his sister's marriage, and of De Lancey's death at Waterloo:--

"As we in the _Endymion_ had the exclusive charge of the convoy of transports, we remained to the very last, to assist the ships with provisions, and otherwise to regulate the movements of the stragglers. Whilst we were thus engaged, and lying to, with our main-topsail to the mast, a small Spanish boat came alongside, with two or three British officers in her. On these gentlemen being invited to step up, and say what they wanted, one of them begged we would inform him where the transport No. 139 was to be found.

"'How can we possibly tell you that?' said the officer of the watch. 'Don't you see the ships are scattered as far as the horizon in every direction? You had much better come on board this ship in the meantime.'

"'No, sir, no,' cried the officers; 'we have received directions to go on board the transport 139, and her we must find.'

"'What is all this about?' inquired the captain of the _Endymion_; and being told of the scruples of the strangers, insisted upon their coming up. He very soon explained to them the utter impossibility, at such a moment, of finding out any particular transport amongst between three and four hundred ships, every one of which was following her own way. We found out afterwards that they only were apprehensive of having it imagined they had designedly come to the frigate for better quarters. Nothing, of course, was farther from our thoughts; indeed, it was evidently the result of accident. So we sent away their little boat, and just at that moment the gun-room steward announced breakfast. We invited our new friends down, and gave them a hearty meal in peace and comfort--a luxury they had not enjoyed for many a long and rugged day.

"Our next care was to afford our tired warriors the much-required comforts of a razor and clean linen. We divided the party amongst us; and I was so much taken with one of these officers, that I urged him to accept such accommodation as my cabin and wardrobe afforded. He had come to us without one stitch of clothes beyond what he then wore, and these, to say the truth, were not in the best condition, at the elbows and other angular points of his frame. Let that pass--he was as fine a fellow as ever stepped; and I had much pride and pleasure in taking care of him during the passage.

"We soon became great friends; but on reaching England we parted, and I never saw him more. Of course he soon lost sight of me, but his fame rose high, and, as I often read his name in the Gazettes during the subsequent campaigns in the Peninsula, I looked forward with a gradually increasing anxiety to the renewal of an acquaintance begun so auspiciously. At last I was gratified by a bright flash of hope in this matter, which went out, alas, as speedily as it came. Not quite six years after these events, I came home from India, in command of a sloop of war. Before entering the Channel, we fell in with a ship which gave us the first news of the battle of Waterloo, and spared us a precious copy of the Duke of Wellington's despatch; and within five minutes after landing at Portsmouth, I met a near relation of my own. This seemed a fortunate rencontre, for I had not received a letter from home for nearly a year--and I eagerly asked him--

"'What news of all friends?'

"'I suppose,' he said, 'you know of your sister's marriage?'

"'No, indeed! I do not!--which sister?'

"He told me.

"'But to whom is she married?' I cried out with intense impatience, and wondering greatly that he had not told me this at once.

"'Sir William De Lancey was the person,' he answered. But he spoke not in the joyous tone that befits such communications.

"'God bless me!' I exclaimed. 'I am delighted to hear that. I know him well--we picked him up in a boat, at sea, after the battle of Corunna, and I brought him home in my cabin in the _Endymion_. I see by the despatch, giving an account of the late victory, that he was badly wounded--how is he now? I observe by the postscript to the Duke's letter that strong hopes are entertained of his recovery.'

"'Yes,' said my friend, 'that was reported, but could hardly have been believed. Sir William was mortally wounded, and lived not quite a week after the action. The only comfort about this sad matter is, that his poor wife, being near the field at the time, joined him immediately after the battle, and had the melancholy satisfaction of attending her husband to the last!'"[27]

[Footnote 27: _Fragments of Voyages and Travels_, by Captain Basil Hall, R.N., 1831, vol. ii., pp. 367-371.]

It was, as before stated, at Captain Hall's request that Lady De Lancey wrote the memorable Waterloo narrative.

In order to satisfy the natural curiosity of friends--who had probably heard of the narrative in Captain Hall's possession--Lady De Lancey prepared an abridged version, in more general terms, and of a much more reserved character than the original account, written for her brother only.

This condensed account was found amongst the papers of her nephew, General De Lancey Lowe, after his death in 1880. His widow published it in the _Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine_ for 1888, p. 414.

In some few instances this abridged account contains descriptive touches not given in the original narrative. These variations are given in the form of notes to the present edition of the narrative.

Thomas Moore in his diary for the 29th August 1824 describes the circumstances under which Captain Hall lent him his copy of the narrative as follows:--

"A note early from Lord Lansdowne, to say that Capt. Basil Hall, who is at Bowood, wishes much to see me; and that if I cannot come over to-day to either luncheon or dinner, he will call upon me to-morrow. Answered that I would come to dinner to-day. Walked over at five.... Company, only Capt. Basil Hall, Luttrel, and Nugent, and an _ad interim_ tutor of Kerry's.... Hall gave me, before I came away, a journal written by his sister, Lady De Lancey, containing an account of the death of her husband at Waterloo, and her attendance upon him there, they having been but three months married. Walked home; took the narrative to bed with me to read a page or two, but found it so deeply interesting, that I read till near two o'clock, and finished it; made myself quite miserable, and went to sleep, I believe, crying. Hall said he would call upon me to-morrow."[28]

[Footnote 28: _Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore_, edited by Lord John Russell, vol. iv., p. 239.]

Earl Stanhope, in his _Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington_, p. 182, writes as follows: "I mentioned with much praise Lady De Lancey's narrative of her husband's lingering death and of her own trials and sufferings after Waterloo. The Duke told me that he had seen it--Lord Bathurst having lent it him many years ago." This conversation took place on the 12th October 1839.

The two most famous literary men to whom Captain Basil Hall lent the narrative, were, however, Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens.

Sir Walter Scott writes under date Abbotsford, 13th October 1825, that his publisher, Constable, thinks that the narrative "would add very great interest as an addition to the letters which I wrote from Paris soon after Waterloo, and certainly I would consider it as one of the most valuable and important documents which could be published as illustrative of the woes of war."[29]

"I never read anything which affected my own feelings more strongly, or which, I am sure, would have a deeper interest on [_sic_] those of the public....

"Perhaps it may be my own high admiration of the contents of this heartrending diary, which makes me suppose a possibility that after such a lapse of years, the publication may possibly (as that which cannot but do the highest honour to the memory of the amiable authoress) may [_sic_] not be judged altogether inadmissible....--Most truly yours,

"WALTER SCOTT."[30]

[Footnote 29: Perhaps the _Mémoires de Madame la Marquise de Larochejaquelein_ of which four editions were published between 1814 and 1817--one of the noblest and most touching of autobiographies--is the nearest parallel in literature to Lady De Lancey's narrative. The French Marchioness describes her experiences in Paris in 1789, and during the Insurrection of La Vendée in 1793.--ED.]

[Footnote 30: The complete letter will be found in Appendix A of this volume.]

The following is a transcript of the most remarkable passages in Dickens' letter:--

"DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,

_"Tuesday evening_, 16_th_ _March_ 1841.

"MY DEAR HALL, ...

"I have not had courage until last night to read Lady De Lancey's narrative, and, but for your letter, I should not have mastered it even then. One glance at it, when, through your kindness, it first arrived, had impressed me with a foreboding of its terrible truth, and I really have shrunk from it in pure lack of heart.

"After working at Barnaby all day, and wandering about the most wretched and distressful streets for a couple of hours in the evening--searching for some pictures I wanted to build upon--I went at it, at about ten o'clock. To say that the reading that most astonishing and tremendous account has constituted an epoch in my life--that I shall never forget the lightest word of it--that I cannot throw the impression aside, and never saw anything so real, so touching, and so actually present before my eyes, is nothing. I am husband and wife, dead man and living woman, Emma and General Dundas, doctor and bedstead--everything and everybody (but the Prussian officer--damn him) all in one. What I have always looked upon as masterpieces of powerful and affecting description, seem as nothing in my eyes. If I live for fifty years, I shall dream of it every now and then, from this hour to the day of my death, with the most frightful reality. The slightest mention of a battle will bring the whole thing before me. I shall never think of the Duke any more but as he stood in his shirt with the officer in full-dress uniform, or as he dismounted from his horse when the gallant man was struck down. It is a striking proof of the power of that most extraordinary man, Defoe, that I seem to recognise in every line of the narrative something of him. Has this occurred to you? The going to Waterloo with that unconsciousness of everything in the road, but the obstacles to getting on--the shutting herself up in her room and determining not to hear--the not going to the door when the knocking came--the finding out by her wild spirits when she heard he was safe, how much she had feared when in doubt and anxiety--the desperate desire to move towards him--the whole description of the cottage, and its condition; and their daily shifts and contrivances, and the lying down beside him in the bed and both _falling asleep_; and his resolving not to serve any more, but to live quietly thenceforth; and her sorrow when she saw him eating with an appetite, so soon before his death; and his death itself--all these are matters of truth, which only that astonishing creature, I think, could have told in fiction.

"Of all the beautiful and tender passages--the thinking every day how happy and blest she was--the decorating him for the dinner--the standing in the balcony at night and seeing the troops melt away through the gate--and the rejoining him on his sick-bed--I say not a word. They are God's own, and should be sacred. But let me say again, with an earnestness which pen and ink can no more convey than toast and water, in thanking you heartily for the perusal of this paper, that its impression on me can never be told; that the ground she travelled (which I know well) is holy ground to me from this day; and that, please Heaven, I will tread its every foot this very next summer, to have the softened recollection of this sad story on the very earth where it was acted.

"You won't smile at this, I know. When my enthusiasms are awakened by such things, they don't wear out....--Faithfully yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."[31]

[Footnote 31: The complete letter will be found in Appendix A of this volume.]

Many literary and artistic masterpieces have grouped themselves round Waterloo. One of the most striking passages in _Vanity Fair_ refers to an imaginary incident in connection with the battle. Sir Walter Scott once said that in the whole range of English poetry there was nothing finer than the stanzas in _Childe Harold_, commencing with the line--

"There was a sound of revelry by night,"

and ending with the words--

"Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent."

Tennyson's _Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington_ ranks as a funeral dirge with _Lycidas_ and _Adonais_. Napoleon's tomb in the Invalides may hold its own almost with the Tàj. Yet, when all is said and done, the fact remains that no hero of the battle, and indeed few victims of war, have ever received a more touching memorial than the one here set forth in the sight of all future generations of men by the love and the literary genius of Lady De Lancey.

B.R. WARD.

HALIFAX, N.S., _April_ 1906.