# Battle of Waterloo (diary accounts)/Flight from Brussels

FLIGHT FROM BRUSSELS.
SOME of the families of the first respectability, whom I had occasion to mention before, as being so anxious to get over to the Continent in time to be present at the opening of the campaign, were at Brussels on the eventful Saturday, (as is by no means improbable,) when the Prussian horsemen came galloping into the town, cutting their horses with their sabres to expeditate their flight; I think it very likely that they would lose no time in turning their faces again to their own happy country, and be glad to mix with the promiscuous throng.
Sunday came, and the battle about nine miles off began to roar. It was described by the inhabitants of Brussels as one uninterrupted peal of thunder in their ears for eight hours.
“Then great events were in the gale, “And each hour brought a varying tale.”
But the fears of the inhabitants always made the French successful.— What then must they have felt when the English baggage passed through Brussels; and crowded the road to Antwerp. No wonder that the rumour was then believed that the French had gained a complete victory. The entire population were now to fly a satisfactory piece of evidence of no great attachment to the French. We are lost, we are lost, was the only cry to be heard among the inhabitants. My friend resolved on flight on his lady’s account, and had the extraordinary fortune to reach Mechline, about 15 miles, unhurt. They got a place in the track boat on the canal; and being close to the road, saw all its horrors; When horses fell, the waggon wheels crushed the ​rider; baggage was thrown off, and carried away by the peasants, to be cut open and plundered. Great sums of money were in this way lost: and clothes and other property spread over the fields. An English Officer, who had lost a foot, and was carried on his servant’s back came and begged to be taken into the boat. He was known to my friend, who, although the passengers, intent on self-preservation opposed it, by absolute force obtained his admission. At Mechline, they found it very difficult to obtain admission into a house; and the difficulty was increased when the people were told that the lady was ill. Most providentially they procured a carriage to Antwerp next day. On their arrival there, they heard an altercation between their coachman and a woman on the top, whom he had taken up, and would not let down till she paid a franc. They found this poor woman to be the widow, newly so made, of a soldier killed at Quatre Bras; and the mother of a child which she had the day before seen crushed to death by a waggon wheel! Many of the wounded were travelling the same road, some had lost a hand or an arm; thousands were on foot; and all sorts of carriages and horses crowded the road, and increased the danger. The scene was beyond description horrible: but a feeling of terror and self-preservation much diminished the concern for the sufferers. — This is very common in the horrors of war. The persons crushed in the flight to Antwerp, were thrown into the ditches. The confusion was dreadful: yet no one had seen a single Frenchman!
What then must have been the feelings of the poor gardener at Hougomont, at the time he was obliged to remain close prisoner in his garden, in the midst of the carnage, because, (as he candidly avowed), when the battle was begun he could not venture ​out of it—of the farmer Lacoste, in his pinioned situation beside Buonaparte —or, if I may venture so to speak, of the commandant of that nameless corps of Gentlemen light horse volunteers, when he received the unwelcome hint from Lord Wellington’s aid-du-camp, that an opportunity occurred for them to charge the French cavalry; their colonel, in great surprise objected the enemy’s strength—cuirasses,—and the consideration, which had unaccountably, he said, escaped the Commander in chief, that his regiment were "all gentlemenǃ!" This diverting response was carried back to Lord Wellington; who dispatched the messenger again to say that if the gentlemen would take post upon an eminence, which he pointed to in the rear, they would have an excellent view of the battle; and he would leave the choice of a proper time to charge, entirely to their own sagacity and discretion, in which he had the fullest confidence. The colonel actually thanked the aid-du-camp for this distinguished post of honor, and followed by his gallant train, with their very high plumes, (the present great point of continental military foppery), was out of danger in a moment.