'Whether the Duke will do my brigade justice or not, I know not; but Bonaparte has given them their due in his account. We are the cavalry that he alludes to, where at the end he says, "At eight o'clock," etc.; and the Colonel of the 3rd Chasseurs, who lodged the night before last in the house I occupied, last night told the proprietor "that two regiments of British Hussars decided the affair."[159] The third regiment (1st Hussars) I kept in reserve.
'Of course, our loss was severe. All those returned missing are since ascertained to have been killed.
'I never saw such a day, nor anyone else. I expect and hope that every soldier will bear a medal with "Mont St. Jean" on it. I would rather do so than be adorned by the brightest star that any potentate could bestow on me....
'To Wynne Pendarves, Esq.,
'No. 11, Queen Anne Street, London.'
For his services on this occasion Vivian received the following decorations: viz., the Order of Maria Theresa from the Emperor of Austria; the Order of St. Wladimir from the Emperor of Russia; and that of Hanover from the Prince Regent.
In his despatch dated 'Waterloo, 19th June, 1815,' the day after that great and glorious victory, the Duke says that the British army 'never, upon any occasion, conducted itself better.... There is no officer nor description of troops that did not behave well. I must, however, particularly mention, for his Royal Highness's approbation——' Here follows a list of heroic and illustrious names; amongst which Truro men especially, but also all Cornishmen, and all Englishmen, ever read, with glowing pride, the name of our own hero, Major-General Sir Hussey Vivian.
A brother-officer of Vivian's (Colonel Taylor, of the 10th Hussars) wrote the following lines on the occasion:
'From the left flank, in column, winding far,
Speeds with a whirlwind's force the swift hussar;
Tho' to their thund'ring hoofs the plain resounds
Still cautious discipline their ardour bounds.
Who, with a hero's port and lofty form,
With waving sabre onward guides the storm?
While through the tangled corn and yielding clay
His spurs incessant urge his panting grey[160]—
'Tis Vivian, pride of old Cornubia's hills,
His veins the untainted blood of Britons fills.
Him follows close a Manners,[161] glorious name,
In him a Granby's soul aspires to fame,
Or such as erst, when Rodney gained the day,
Ebb'd from his kinsman's wound the life away.
"Front form the line!" cries Vivian; still its course
The head maintained; the rear with headlong force
Speeds at the word, till troops to troops combine,
And each firm squadron forms the serried line.'
His subsequent connexion with the Waterloo campaign may be briefly summed up in the statements that he led the advanced guard of the British army all the way from Waterloo to the gates of Paris; and that, on the restoration of Louis XVIII., his brigade formed part of the allied army of occupation in Picardy—services less brilliant perhaps than those which have just been described, yet certainly most useful and important.