of Britain's
cavalry. Onward they went, carrying death and ruin before them, and never
stayed their course until the guns were recaptured, and the cuirassiers,
repulsed, disordered, and broken, had retired beneath the protection of
their artillery.

There was, as a brilliant and eloquent writer on the subject mentions, a
terrible sameness in the whole of this battle. Incessant charges of cavalry
upon the squares of our infantry, whose sole manoeuvre consisted in either
deploying into line to resist the attack of the infantry, or falling back
into square when the cavalry advanced; performing those two evolutions
under the devastating fire of artillery, before the unflinching heroism of
that veteran infantry whose glories have been reaped upon the blood-stained
fields of Austerlitz, Marengo, and Wagram, or opposing an unbroken front
to the whirlwind swoop of infuriated cavalry. Such were the enduring and
devoted services demanded from the English troops; and such they failed not
to render. Once or twice had temper nearly failed them, and the cry ran
through the ranks, "Are we never to move forward? Only let us at them!" But
the word was not yet spoken which was to undam the pent-up torrent, and
bear down with unrelenting vengeance upon the now exulting columns of the
enemy.

It was six o'clock; the battle had continued with unchanged fortune for
three hours. The French, masters of La Haye Sainte, could never advance
farther into our position. They had gained the orchard of Hougoumont; but
the chateau was still held by the British Guards, although its blazing
roof and crumbling walls made its occupation rather the desperate stand of
unflinching valor than the maintenance of an important position. The smoke
which hung upon the field rolled in slow and heavy masses back upon the
French lines, and gradually discovered to our view the entire of the army.
We quickly perceived that a change was taking place in their position. The
troops, which on their left stretched far beyond Hougoumont, were now moved
nearer to the centre. The attack upon the chateau seemed less vigorously
supported, while the oblique direction of their right wing, which, pivoting
upon Planchenoit, opposed a face to the Prussians, all denoted a change in
their order of battle. It was now the hour when Napoleon, at last convinced
that nothing but the carnage he could no longer support could destroy the
unyielding ranks of British infantry; that although Hougou