The battle of Waterloo was the culmination of many years’ conflict between the English and the French, and the final struggle between Napoleon and Wellington. We have seen how the rivalry with France was fought to a finish in Canada and the West Indies, in India, in the Peninsular, and on the Continent. After Waterloo there was peace for many years. Napoleon, banished to St. Helena, was soon to die, and remain as a deathless memory amongst the old veterans of the armies he had led to victory. Wellington was to win new triumphs, though infinitely less enduring, in political life, and to lose the fickle popularity of an English mob, dying long after in 1852. The Highlanders, who had fought almost unceasingly for many years and in many parts of the world, and whose gallantry at Waterloo brought them new laurels, were mainly engaged upon home service until a new generation heard in the far Crimea the melancholy beating of the drums of war. CHAPTER XIV THE HIGHLAND BRIGADE AT THE BATTLE OF ALMA (_September 20, 1854_) “Leave me, comrades—here I drop; No, Sir, take them on; All are wanted—none shall stop; Duty must be done: Those whose guard you take will find me, As they pass below.” So the soldier spake, and staggering Fell amid the snow, And ever, on the dreary heights, Down came the snow. HENRY LUSHINGTON. The years following Waterloo were free from war, but full of domestic unrest. The National Debt had risen from under 240 millions to over 860 millions, while the end of hostilities brought with it a fall in corn, a renewal of foreign competition in trade, and a tremendous increase in unemployment. Riots and plots abounded; the introduction and development of machinery was blamed for throwing people out of work. There was even, in the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820, a futile idea of murdering the Cabinet. In 1832 the famous Reform Bill was passed, resisted to the last by Wellington and the Tories, while the Abolition of Slavery followed soon after. In 1837 Queen Victoria came to the throne. In 1854 the Crimean War broke out, after a peace in Europe lasting practically forty years.