[476] See Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 68.
[477] See Dispatches, ix. p. 294.
[478] Wellington to Clinton, July 16, 7 a.m. Dispatches, ix. p. 291.
[479] See report of one of the officers commanding patrols, Tomkinson of the 16th L.D. in the latter’s Memoirs, p. 180.
[480] Belonging one to the cavalry, the other to the Light Division.
[481] Tomkinson, p. 188.
[482] Compare Tomkinson’s narrative of this incident (pp. 180-1) with Napier’s vivid and well-told tale (iv. pp. 254-5). Both agree that the French were inferior in numbers to the two squadrons, and that there was deplorable confusion.
[483] See Vere’s Marches and Movements of the 4th Division, p. 28. Napier’s statement that the Light Division was more exposed than the 4th or 5th during the retreat, seems to be discounted by the fact that it had not one man killed or wounded—the 5th Division had only two (in the 3rd Royal Scots), the 4th Division over 200; and though most of them fell in the last charge, a good number were hit in the retreat.
[484] Vere’s Marches and Movements of the 4th Division, p. 28.
[485] Brotherton of the 14th L.D. says with the right échelon advanced (Hamilton’s History of the 14th, p. 107), but I fancy that the German Hussars’ version that the left échelon led is correct, as the right squadron of their regiment would have been in the middle of the brigade, not on a flank. See narrative in Schwertfeger, i. pp. 368-9.