"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."
[22] All the foregoing were on the General Staff of the Army or on the Duke's personal Staff.—Ed.
[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]
[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....