Exception has been taken to the conduct of Wellington in detaching 17,000 men to guard the approach to Brussels at Hal, and, still more, in not recalling them, when he must have ascertained that nothing was to be feared on that side, and when such a reinforcement of his right wing must have been all-important. But it must be remembered that in this force there were only 1,500 English troops, and 2,000 Hanoverian militia. The rest were Dutch and Belgians. At all events, Napoleon left his right flank undefended, though he was already somewhat anxious about the Prussian movements, and Wellington fought the battle of Waterloo with a force numerically inferior to that under Napoleon's command, though it might have been rendered superior by the accession of the Hal contingent. The effective part of this force, numbering in all 67,661 men, consisted of 24,000 British soldiers, 6,000 soldiers of the king's German legion, and about 11,000 Hanoverians. Napoleon's force numbered 72,000 men, and it was stronger both in cavalry and in guns. It represented the flower of the French army; there were few, if any, recruits as raw as those who swelled the ranks of the British regiments; there were thousands upon thousands who had formed part of that _Grande Armée_ which had overawed the continent of Europe. It is fair, however, to record that, while the British rank and file suffered much for want of sufficient food, the French had fared still worse, and that very many of them could have been in no fit condition for the struggle impending over them.