It would not perhaps be out of place if we now notice an assertion of French, and even of English writers; namely, that the duke of Wellington was taken by surprise at the commencement of this campaign. Surely the French must laugh in their sleeves when they find English writers credulous enough to print statements which have originated in the lively imaginations of our neighbours, and to support the assertion that the Duke depended upon such a man as Fouché, for information of Napoleon’s arrival in Belgium, and of his plan of operations. We find a very late writer even quoting Fouché, to prove what he advances. One would imagine that such authors were perfectly ignorant of the contents of the Duke’s twelfth volume of the Dispatches, or of Fouché’s reputation. They deny his Grace the possession of common prudence, if they believe he would intrust the safety of his army, and thereby the interests of Europe, to an ignoble police-spy, whose memory is justly despised by every Frenchman. In reply to the unfounded statement that Wellington relied on any information from that archtraitor and lump of duplicity, it is sufficient to give the following extract from a letter in the Duke’s Dispatches, (vol. XII, page 649,) addressed to Dumouriez: “_Avant mon arrivée à Paris, au mois de juillet, je n’avais jamais vu Fouché, ni eu avec lui communication quelconque, ni avec aucun de ceux qui sont liés avec lui_.” (“Before my arrival in Paris, in July, I had never seen Fouché, nor had had any communication with him, nor with any one connected with him.”) Of the French movements the Duke had timely information from a very different source. I was told by sir Hussey Vivian, (when he visited the field in 1839,) that he was aware on the 13th of June; of the French being concentrated and ready to attack; and that he reported the circumstance to the Duke: this is corroborated in Siborne’s history, at page 49, vol. I: these are undoubted authorities. Those who have attentively followed the Duke in his operations during this campaign, or referred to his correspondence, will have found that, for weeks before, his Grace had foreseen Napoleon’s intentions and had made deliberate arrangements to render them unavailing. The allied army was so cantoned by Wellington, that its divisions could be promptly united when the plans of Napoleon should be sufficiently developed. The admirable organization of the allied army, effected by the Duke so shortly after he took the command, must have struck our readers: it is evident he was at once the main-spring, directing head, and very soul of the grand European coalition; and it could only be a just confidence in the admirable plan he had drawn up for the conduct of the allied troops, that dictated the letter addressed to sir Henry Wellesley, June 2d, 1815, and which expresses the following very remarkable anticipation of coming events: