As though it had been mere felony
in our army to look a French one in the face, he said in more notes
than one, dated from two to four P.M. on the field of Waterloo, "Here
are the English--we have them; they are caught _en flagrant delit_"
Yet no man should have known us better; no man had drunk deeper from
the cup of humiliation than Soult had in 1809, when ejected by us with
headlong violence from Oporto, and pursued through a long line of
wrecks to the frontier of Spain; and subsequently at Albuera, in the
bloodiest of recorded battles, to say nothing of Toulouse, he should
have learned our pretensions.] of having bearded the _elite_ of
their troops, and having beaten them in pitched battles! Five years of
life it was worth paying down for the privilege of an outside place on
a mail-coach, when carrying down the first tidings of any such event.
And it is to be noted that, from our insular situation, and the
multitude of our frigates disposable for the rapid transmission of
intelligence, rarely did any unauthorised rumour steal away a
prelibation from the first aroma of the regular despatches. The
government news was generally the earliest news.
From eight P.M. to fifteen or twenty minutes later imagine the mails
assembled on parade in Lombard Street; where, at that time, [Footnote:
"_At that time_":--I speak of the era previous to Waterloo.
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