“The attack was most gallantly led by the officers, but it failed. It failed because the lancers stood firm, had their flanks completely secured, and were backed by a large mass of cavalry.
“The regiment was repulsed, but it did not run away: no, it rallied immediately. I renewed the attack; it again failed, from the same cause. It retired in perfect order, although it had sustained so severe a loss; but you had thrown the lancers into disorder, who being in motion, I then made an attack upon them with the 1st life-guards, who certainly made a very handsome charge, and completely succeeded. This is the plain honest truth. However lightly I think of lancers under ordinary circumstances, I think, posted as they were, they had a decided advantage over the hussars. The impetuosity however and weight of the life-guards carried all before them, and whilst I exculpate my own regiment, I am delighted in being able to bear testimony to the gallant conduct of the former. Be not uneasy, my brother officers; you had ample opportunity, of which you gallantly availed yourselves, of avenging yourselves on the 18th for the failure on the 17th; and after all, what regiment, or which of us, is certain of success?
“Be assured that I am proud of being your colonel, and that you possess my utmost confidence.
“Your sincere friend,
“Anglesey, lieutenant-general.”
The 23d light dragoons, supported by the life-guards, covered our retreat, and we arrived at a position on which was exhibited as noble a display of valour and discipline, as is to be found either in our own military annals, or in those of any other nation. This position was in front of and about two miles and a half from Waterloo, where most of our army was then drawn up.
The French advance-guard halted on the heights near La Belle-Alliance, when Napoleon said, he wished he had the power of Joshua to stop the sun, that he might attack us that day.
They opened a cannonade upon our line, but principally upon our centre behind the farm of La Haye-Sainte: our guns soon answered them to their cost, and caused great havock amongst the enemy’s columns, as they arrived on the opposite heights between La Belle-Alliance and the orchard of La Haye-Sainte. It was now getting dusk, and orders were given to throw out piquets along the front and flanks of the army.
Our left squadron, under captain Verner, was thrown into the valley in front of the left wing; the rest of my regiment bivacked near where Picton fell the next day.
The spirit of mutual defiance was such, that in posting the piquets, there were many little cavalry affairs, which, although of no useful result to either side, were conducted with great bravery, and carried to such a pitch, that restraint was absolutely necessary. Captain Heyliger, of the 7th hussars, (part of our piquet,) with his troop, made a spirited charge upon the enemy’s cavalry, and when the Duke sent to check him, his Grace desired to be made acquainted with the name of the officer who had shown so much gallantry. A better or more gallant officer, than captain Heyliger, never drew a sword; but he was truly unfortunate: if there was a ball flying about, he was usually the target. I was three times engaged with the enemy, serving with the captain, and he was wounded on each of those occasions: the first time, foraging at Haspereen; next, at the battle of Orthez; and thirdly, at Waterloo. The ball he received on the last occasion was extracted at Bruges, in 1831.
Our bivac was dismal in the extreme; what with the thunder, lightning and rain, it was as bad a night as I ever witnessed, a regular soaker: torrents burst forth from the well charged clouds upon our comfortless bivacs, and the uproar of the elements, during the night preceding Waterloo, seemed as the harbinger of the bloody contest. We cloaked, throwing a part over the saddle, holding by the stirrup leather, to steady us if sleepy: to lie down with water running in streams under us, was not desirable, and to lie amongst the horses not altogether safe. A comrade of mine, Robert Fisher, a tailor by trade, proposed that one of us should go in search of something to sit on. I moved off for that purpose, and obtained two bundles of bean-stalks from a place that I now know as Mont-St.-Jean farm. This put us, I may say, quite in clover. The poor tailor had his thread of life snapped short on the following day.