In the course of our wanderings we met many people whom we knew, and had much conversation with many whom we did not know. At this momentous crisis, one feeling actuated every heart--one thought engaged every tongue--one common interest bound together every human being. All ranks were confounded; all distinctions levelled; all common forms neglected. Gentlemen and servants; lords and common soldiers; British and foreigners, were all upon an equality--elbowing each other without ceremony, and addressing each other without apology. Ladies accosted men they had never before seen with eager questions without hesitation; strangers conversed together like friends, and English reserve seemed no longer to exist. From morning till night the great Place de Maire was completely filled with people, standing under umbrellas, and eagerly watching for news of the battle; so closely packed was this anxious crowd, that, when viewed from the hotel windows, nothing could be seen but one compact mass of umbrellas. As the day advanced, the consternation became greater. The number of terrified fugitives from Brussels, upon whose faces were marked the deepest anxiety and distress, and who thronged into the town on horseback and on foot, increased the general dismay, while long rows of carriages lined the streets, filled with people who could find no place of shelter. Troops from the Hanseatic towns marched in to strengthen the garrison of the city in case of a siege. Long trains of artillery, ammunition, military stores, and supplies of all sorts incessantly poured in, and there seemed to be no end of the heavy waggons that rolled through the streets. Reports more and more gloomy reached our ears; every hour only served to add to the general despondency. On every side we heard that the battle was fought under circumstances so disadvantageous to the British, and against a preponderance of force so overpowering, that it was impossible it could be won. Long did we resist the depressing impression these alarming accounts were calculated to make upon our minds; long did we believe, in spite of every unfavourable appearance, that the British would be victorious. Towards evening a wounded officer arrived, bringing intelligence that the onset had been most terrible, and so immense were the numbers of the enemy, that he "did not believe it was in the power of man to save the battle." To record the innumerable false reports we heard spread by the terrified fugitives, who continually poured into the town from Brussels, would be endless. At length, after an interval of the most torturing suspense, a wounded British officer of hussars, scarcely able to sit his horse, and faint from loss of blood, rode up to the door of the hotel, and told us the disastrous tidings, that the battle was lost, and that Brussels, by this time, was in the possession of the enemy. He said, that in all the battles he had ever been engaged in, he had never witnessed anything at