About a hundred yards on the allied left of La Belle-Alliance, the road running towards Plancenoit becomes a complete hollow-way, out of which a broken column of French infantry was in the act of debouching with some guns, and making a hasty retreat, when the 52d regiment in its advance came right upon them. The infantry tried to escape, and at the same time to defend themselves as best they could. The artillery turned to their left and attempted to get up the bank, but their horses were immediately shot down by the 52d. A young officer of the battery surrendered; but the commander, a veteran who wore upon his breast the decoration of the Legion of honour, stood, sword in hand, in the midst of his guns, and in an attitude of bold defiance. A soldier started from the 52d ranks and made a thrust at him, which the officer parried; a scuffle ensued, the man closed with him, threw him on the ground, and keeping him down with his foot, reversed his musket to bayonet him. The repugnance to the shedding of human blood unnecessarily[74], (a feeling which we may proudly claim as belonging to British soldiers,) burst forth in a groan of displeasure from his comrades. It came too late; the fatal thrust had passed, and the life of the deserving member of the honoured Legion was extinct. The battery and many prisoners were captured. The brigade, pressing on in pursuit of the squares, got upon the highest point of ground of the French position, and in the line of fire from the Prussian batteries[75]: the Duke sent to Bulow to stop the fire. The 71st, on the right, captured a battery, and one of the guns, being loaded, was turned round and fired into the retreating foe by captain Campbell of the 71st, aide-de-camp to general Adam. It is supposed that this was the last French gun, fired on that memorable day. Soon after, the squares, followed by Adam, halted near the farm of Rossomme, threw away their knapsacks and accoutrements, the better to expedite their flight, and being thus lightened, they disappeared in the twilight. About the time that Howard was killed, Vandeleur’s brigade was spanking along under the east hedge of Hougoumont; and overtaking some of the flying enemy between the Hougoumont enclosures and Rossomme, they made some charges and captured a great number of the enemy. As soon as a part of Zieten’s corps had joined our left, Blücher ordered the battery to open fire, the infantry to descend into the valley of Smohain, and in conjunction with the troops of Nassau to attack the French, who had been reinforced in order to prevent a junction between Bulow’s corps and the allied left.