“After having placed 13,400 men as garrisons in Mons, Tournay, Ypres, Ostend, Nieuport and Antwerp, I can get together about 23,000 good troops, English and Hanoverian; amongst them about five thousand excellent cavalry. This number will be increased in a few days, especially in cavalry and artillery. I can also bring up 20,000 Dutch and Belgian troops, including two thousand cavalry; the whole having about sixty pieces of cannon. “My opinion is, that we ought to take measures to unite the whole Prussian army with this allied Anglo-Dutch army in front of Brussels; and that, with this view, the troops under your Excellency’s command should, without loss of time, march along the Maese, and take up cantonments between Charleroi, Namur and Huy. “By this disposition, we shall be sure to save this country, so interesting to the allied powers: we shall cover the concentration of their forces on the Rhine; and we shall escape the evils which would inevitably result from a sudden retreat in our actual circumstances. At the same time, your Excellency would be just as able as you are in your present position, to march your troops to any point required by the service of the king; and we should have for our numerous cavalry a field of battle as favourable as any in the rear of Brussels. “I beg your Excellency to take these reasons into consideration, and to let me know your determination; in order that I may decide what measures I ought to take in case I should be attacked, if your Excellency should judge more fit to remain where you are. “I ought to apprize your Excellency, that the king of the Netherlands has given orders for providing your troops with all they may want upon their advance into this country. “WELLINGTON.” Our readers will remark in this letter the Duke’s prompt decision on the importance of an immediate junction of a large Prussian force with the British allied army, and of protecting Brussels at all hazards. We shall see how much stress Napoleon laid upon keeping the British and the Prussians apart, and upon making a dash at Brussels. These two great commanders then took the same view: but the Duke’s vigilance and energy baffled all Napoleon’s exertions against the English allied army and the city of Brussels: the Prussians would have suffered less at Ligny, if the Duke’s earnest entreaty for the earliest possible junction of the allies had been duly appreciated. Wellington also correctly anticipated, from the first moment, that Charleroi and its vicinity would probably be the point selected by Napoleon for his irruption into the Netherlands.