Again, however, he strongly recommended us to set off immediately. If the army should have to retreat, and fall back upon Brussels, which, considering the immense force of the enemy, he said, was not improbable, the confusion in Brussels would be dreadful, and escape impossible. The French might even take the town, and then our situation would be horrible indeed. Of the prudence and wisdom of this advice there could be no doubt. We had experienced the utter impracticability of getting away in the moment of danger; we knew not how soon that moment might return. Had we ourselves possessed the means of escape, like Mr. and Mrs. H. and others, who had horses of their own, nothing could have induced us to have left Brussels to the last; but to remain exposed to incessant alarm and to imminent danger, in an open town, which before night might be in possession of a merciless enemy, whose formidable armies were threatening it in two separate divisions, at the distance of a very few leagues, seemed certainly little less than madness. With extreme reluctance we at last determined to set out for Antwerp. The Wilsons, though they had carriage-horses, were on the point of setting off; the carriages of Lady F.S. and Lady C. were also at their doors, the trunks and imperiales were tying on with the utmost dispatch, though they had at all times the means of escape within their power. Our faithless côcher now declared he was willing to go with us, as the French, he said, were not _yet_ come--and to Antwerp accordingly we consented to repair. We had had no breakfast all this time, nor would it ever have occurred to us to procure any, had not the sight of Major Wylie's breakfast-tray reminded us of our own famishing state. We swallowed some coffee and bread, sitting on one of the window-seats of the staircase of the Hôtel de Flandre, and then with great regret set off, casting "many a longing, lingering look behind," with feelings of anxiety so deep and overwhelming for the fate and success of our army, that it engrossed all our faculties. Upon the event of the impending battle, which we fully believed this very day was to decide, depended not only the present as well as the future peace and security of Belgium and of Europe; but, what I confess was to us even yet more dear, the safety and the glory of our gallant army. Absorbed in these reflections, as we slowly made our way out of the town, we witnessed many a melancholy sight; crowds of afflicted people were assembled round their poor wounded countrymen who had been brought in from the field. One soldier was dying at the door of his own house: the sobs and lamentations of some of the crowd who were collected round him, and the grief marked on their countenances, proclaimed them to be near relations of the unfortunate sufferer. Quite in the suburbs, some poor people were hanging over the insensible corpses of two soldiers who had died of their wounds. The streets were crowded so as to be