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on every part of the British positition. The slaughter was dreadful yet it would have been greater had not the ground been thoroughly soaked with the rain. On this account the shots seldom rose after they had once touched the ground, and they never bounded along as when the ground is dry. The shells likewise frequently buried themselves, and when they exploded, produced no other effect than casting up a tremendous fountain of mud.
The combat had continued with unabated fury nearly six hours, and almost one third of the allied force was killed or wounded. The Prussians so long and ardently wished for, did not yet arrive. The Duke began to fear that they had been employed or defeated by the French corps which had been left to observe them.
In maintaining our position, and when the Duke of Wellington saw that uncommon efforts were necessary, he had frequent recourse to his encouraging tone of speech. His short phrases are still in the recollection of the officers who were near him, and repeated with a proud feeling of the time and remembrance of the place where they stood. On hearing the balls whistling about him, when in rear of the tree, which will be known by his name to generations after us, he said, with the coolness of a spectator, who was beholding some well contested sport, "That's good practice; I think they fire better than in Spain:"and when many of his best and bravest friends had fallen, and the results of the battle doubtful, to those who remained he said, "Never mind, we'll win the battle yet." In surveying other parts, where, perhaps, was the mightiest pressure for the time, he would speak with such confidence, as never failed to rouse the energy of even drooping minds— giving them spirit
