At the battle of Waterloo the royal sappers and miners were not engaged. Three companies, however, were brought conveniently near to act in the event of their services being needed; and two companies with the pontoons, were quartered at Malines. Of the former companies, the first company, fourth battalion, is considered to have behaved with discredit in quitting the field without sufficient reason, and losing, in the precipitancy and confusion of the march, its baggage and field equipment. But the stigma seems to have been attached to the company without an adequate investigation of the circumstances under which the retreat was imperatively resorted to. The details of the affair are as follows:—On the 17th June the company moved from Hal by Braine-la-leud towards Waterloo, marching the whole of the night, and was on the position when the action commenced on the morning of the 18th. After a time, it was ordered to the rear by Major Sir George Hoste, and accordingly it marched to the furthest end of the village of Waterloo under Lieutenant W. Faris and Sub-Lieutenant R. Turner. There the company remained till between three and four o’clock P.M., when Lieutenant C. K. Sanders, R.E., joined it. About this time a brigade of Hanoverian artillery and cavalry, and several of the British cavalry, were retiring. The latter had vainly laboured to penetrate the retreating crowds, and informed Lieutenant Sanders that the French were at the other end of the village. In a wood on the right, discharges of musketry were heard, and both officers and men, who hurried away from the battle, corroborated the general testimony, that the enemy not only had possession of the wood, but in a short time would cut off the British from the road. Still incredulous of the alarming rumours which reached him, Lieutenant Sanders sought more decisive information as to the reported advantages of the French, and at length, satisfied with the additional affirmations of hundreds of officers and soldiers, who threatened in their flight to overrun the company, he at once ordered it to retire. The circumstances fairly justified this step. But the company had not proceeded far before it was unavoidably thrown into difficulties and disorder. To relieve itself from the masses was impossible. Driven in rear, and encompassed by overwhelming numbers of different regiments, it was borne along at a very rapid rate, in the vortex of the confusion. By the presence of cavalry and cannon, and of capsized waggons and baggage, its march was interrupted and its files broken. Many of the men, therefore, who could not keep up were dispersed among the fugitives; the brigade of waggons, stopped by insuperable obstructions on the road, was abandoned, and the company thus routed lost many of its knapsacks and most of its intrenching tools, baggage, and horses.[225] Such are the facts of this ill-understood affair, which deserve to be viewed more with regret than animadversion; but Colonel Carmichael