Waterloo Days: The narrative of an Englishwoman resident at Brussels in June 1815

by Charlotte A. Eaton

I did not think anything could have roused the phlegmatic Dutch to such energy and vehement animation as they showed in their ardent attachment to the present government, and their detestation of their former tyrants. They are absolutely enthusiastic in their loyalty to the House of Orange; and their implacable and virulent hatred to the French surpasses all conception. They cannot be silent upon this subject; they cannot forget their past sufferings, and the tyranny and cruelty which they endured so long. They never utter their names without bitter execrations, and the very language is become unpopular. But the British they look upon with the highest respect and admiration, and treat them with a blunt, coarse, complimentary sort of kindness, which is flattering to our national pride.

The Dutch, however, allowed that Louis Buonaparte was a very well-intentioned, good-hearted man; but he was only a tool in the hands of the "Great Napoleon;" and, though he did not like to crush them, he had no power to mitigate the tyranny which bowed them to the earth. For Napoleon himself—his ministers, his soldiers, his edicts, and the system of plunder, oppression, and slavery which constituted his government—no words are strong enough to speak their abhorrence. They are now most completely an unanimous people. From the lowest beggar in the street to the king upon his throne, one common political feeling animates and inspires them.

The only people who grew rich during the reign of the French were the smugglers, and some of these men made astonishing fortunes by the sale of colonial produce,—chiefly coffee and tobacco; and English manufactures, which they introduced into the kingdom in great quantities, notwithstanding all the spies, soldiers, plans, penalties, and prohibitions of Buonaparte.

In the failure of taxes and contributions to satisfy his rapacity, he sequestrated a large portion of the funds destined for the annual repair of the dykes and sluices, which in consequence were fast falling to decay; so that had the French Government lasted much longer, Holland might have been no longer a country; it might physically, as well as politically, have ceased to exist, and a tide, even more destructive than the armies of France, have rolled over it and restored it again to the ocean.

Sometimes the faint reports of distant war roused us during our slumbering progress through this soporific country; and Dutch men and Dutch bonnets, and towns and palaces, and universities and museums, and tulips and hyacinths, and even "Orange Boven" itself, were entirely forgotten in the animating and overpowering interest of the triumphant progress of the British arms,—the final fall of the Usurper of France,—and the entrance of the Allied Army, led by the Duke of Wellington, into the gates of Paris.

A sight more affecting than any other that Holland contained we frequently witnessed:—long treckschuyts filled with the wounded Dutch soldiers of Waterloo, mutilated, disabled, sick and suffering, passed us upon the canals, slowly returning to their homes. In many of the towns and villages of Holland, the hospitals were filled with these poor soldiers, to whom the inhabitants showed the most humane and praiseworthy kindness and attention. It is but justice to the Dutch to state, that though their charity began at home it did not end there. Every town and village made contributions for the wounded Belgic and British, as well as for the Dutch, both of money and provisions, including plenty of butter and cheese, together with an enormous supply of ankers of real Hollands, which amused me extremely. I am sure they sent it out of pure love and kindness, anxious, I suppose, that the poor wounded should have plenty of what they liked best themselves; or perhaps they thought that gin, like spermaceti, was "sovereign for an inward bruise."

If Ireland be "the country that owes the most to Nature and the least to Man," Holland is unquestionably the country which owes the most to Man and the least to Nature. I bade it farewell without one feeling of regret: with as little emotion as Voltaire, I could have said—"Adieu! Canaux, Canards, Canaille!"—and after crossing many a tedious and toilsome ferry, and slowly traversing the trackless and sandy desert which separates Bergen-op-Zoom from Antwerp, we left Holland,—I hope, for ever!

Nothing can be imagined more dreary than this journey. One wide extended desert of barren sand surrounded us as far as the eye could reach, in which no trace of man, nor beast, nor human habitation, could be seen. Some bents, thinly scattered upon the hillocks of sand, and occasional groups of stunted fir, through which the wind sighed mournfully, were the only signs of vegetation. Slowly and heavily the horses dragged our cabriolet through these deep sands, choosing their own path as their own sagacity, or that of their driver, directed. Quitting at last this solitary waste, we entered the sheltering copse woods of oak which surround the city of Antwerp, drove swiftly by neat cottages and smiling gardens, descried with delight its lofty walls, its frowning fortifications, and the spire of the Cathedral, whose beauty we could now admire; and with feelings which may be better conceived than described, we once more entered its gates.—But what a change had one fortnight produced! It did not seem to be the same place or the same people; and when I thought of all the quick varying scenes of horror, consternation, and triumph which we had witnessed here, and remembered that within these walls we had trembled for the safety, and mourned the imaginary defeat of that army who were now victorious in the capital of France; when I recalled all that the heroes of my country had done and dared and suffered for her honour and security and peace—and that to them, under Heaven, Europe owed its salvation—it was difficult, it was nearly impossible to restrain the strong tide of mingled emotions which at this moment swelled my heart. Not for worlds, not to have been the first and greatest in another land, would I have resigned the distinction of calling England my country; and I blessed Heaven that I was born an Englishwoman, and born in this, the proudest era of British glory.

As these reflections rapidly passed through my mind, a Highland soldier obstructed our passage with his musket, signifying to the driver that he was to go at a foot-pace past a large building, which we now discovered to be an hospital, and before which the street was thickly laid with straw. We were affected with this proof of the attention and care paid to the wounded, still more so when we learnt that this hospital was full of wounded French. The Highland soldier who now stood on guard to prevent the smallest noise from disturbing the repose of his enemies, had himself been wounded—wounded in the action with them. It was a noble, a divine instance of generosity: it was returning good for evil. It was worthy of England. The French soldiers had inhumanly murdered their wounded prisoners. The British not only dressed the wounds and attended to all the wants of theirs, but they protected and watched over them, that even their very slumbers might not be disturbed.

At the hotel of Le Grand Laboureur they knew and welcomed us again, and testified great joy at the success of the Allies since we had seen them, and a great dread lest Napoleon should make his escape. In the streets we met numbers of poor wounded British officers, weak, pale, faint, and emaciated, slowly and painfully moving a few yards to taste the freshness of the summer and the blessed beams of heaven.