[Illustration: +The Grave of Ewart, who captured the Eagle at Waterloo.+] From a small volume lettered outside:-- "Extracts from a journal kept during the Waterloo campaign, by Lieutenant Archibald James Hamilton, of the 2nd or Royal North British Dragoons, presented to the Officers of the Royal Scots Greys by Major John G. C. Hamilton, M.P., of Dalzell, Lanarkshire, on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, 1881." * * * * * "This is a portion of the Journal of my father, Archibald James Hamilton, who was a Lieutenant in the Scots Greys during the Waterloo campaign." * * * * * "We were quartered in small villages between Brussels and Ghent, and chiefly in farm houses. "I went to bed in my farm house about twelve o'clock on the night of the 15th of June 1815, and was scarcely asleep when the trumpets sounded the turn out: in an instant we were out of bed, the clothes out of the washtub, and in a short time we were ready to march: long indeed before orders came to tell us to what point our march was to be directed. At length an order came which directed us to proceed to Ninove, where we should receive further orders. We were soon there: but the day was gone, and it was dark, and the firing had entirely ceased before we reached the army, having been repeatedly halted on the road during the day, from an apparent want of knowing where to go, and at a time too when the French Cavalry were charging our Infantry with considerable and unusual success. "We encamped in a clover field for the night. A few of us went to a village not far off, which had been completely plundered: we there met with some soldiers of the Highland Brigade, who gave us a most dismal account of the manner in which the French Cavalry had attacked them on the previous day. Never having before seen our army other than victorious, we felt rather dispirited at these accounts, and had not Buonaparte, with his characteristic selfishness, sent for the division which ought to have supported Ney, and which division never fired a shot during the day, there can be little doubt that the battle, instead of being a drawn one, must have turned out positive, and with the aid of his cavalry, of which we had none, Napoleon would have completely defeated the allied troops. "On this day Buonaparte kept his own opposed to our army, notwithstanding he neutralized one of his whole divisions, and he totally defeated the Russian army with a loss, according to their own accounts, of twenty-five thousand men, as their total loss as returned by themselves was upwards of thirty-three thousand: and they could not at Wavre and Waterloo have lost five thousand men.