presenting as it does a lively picture of the prominent events of that striking period, it cannot fail to prove highly interesting to many of your readers. I should feel obliged if you would give it a place in your valuable Magazine as soon as convenient. Your's, respectfully, RICHARD MOODY.

Kingsbridge, October 1, 1818.

"The weather cleared up at noon, and the sun shone out a little just as the battle began. The armies were within eight hundred yards of each other; the videttes, before they were withdrawn, being so near as to be able to converse. At one moment I imagined that I saw Bonaparte, a considerable staff moving rapidly along the front of our line.

"I was stationed with my regiment (about 300 strong) at the extreme of the left wing, and directed to act discretionally: each of the armies was drawn up on a gentle declivity, a small valley lying between them.

"At one o'clock, observing as I thought unsteadiness in a column of French infantry (50 by 20 thousands, or thereabouts) which were advancing with an irregular fire, I resolved to charge them. As we were descending in a gallop, we received from our own troops on the right a fire much more destructive than theirs, they having began long before it could take effect, and slackening as we drew nearer: when we were within fifty paces of them they turned, and much execution was done among them, as we were followed by some Belgians, who had remarked our

success.

"We had no sooner passed through, than we were attacked in our turn before we could form, by about three hundred Polish lancers, who had come down to their relief; the French artillery pouring in among us a heavy fire of grape shot, which however, for one of our men killed three of their own. I was disabled almost instantly in both my arms, and followed by a few of my men, who were presently cut down, no quarter being asked or given. I was carried on by my horse, till receiving a blow on my head from a sabre, I was thrown senseless on my face to the ground. Recovering, I raised myself a little to look round, (being I believe at that time in a condition to get up and run away) when a lancer passing by exclaimed, Tu n'es pas mort, coquin ;'-You are not dead yet, you scoundrel; and struck his lance through my back: my head dropped, the blood gushed into my mouth, a difficulty of breathing came on, and I thought all was over.

"Not long afterwards, (it was then impossible to measure time, but I must have fallen in less than ten minutes after the charge) a tiralleur came up to plunder me, threatening to take VOL. XLII. JANUARY, 1819. G*

my life. I told him that he might search me, directing him to a small side pocket, in which he found three dollars, being all I had; he unloosed my stock, and tore open my waistcoat, then left me in a very uneasy posture; and was no sooner gone, than another came up for the same purpose, but assuring him I had been plundered already, he left me: when an officer bringing on some troops, to which probably the tiralleurs belonged, and halting where I lay, stooped down and addressed me, saying, he feared I was badly wounded. I replied I was, and expressed a wish to be removed into the rear. He said it was against the order to remove any of their own men; but that if they gained the day, as they probably would, for he understood the Duke of Wellington was killed, and that six of our battalions had surrendered, every attention in his power should be shown me. I complained of thirst, and he held his brandy bottle to my lips, directing one of his men to lay me straight on my side, and place a knapsack under my head. He then passed on into the action; and I shall never know to whose generosity I was, as I conceive, indebted for my life. Of what rank he was, I cannot say; he wore a blue great coat. By and by another tiralleur came and knelt, and fired over me, loading and firing many times, and conversing with great gaiety all the while. At last he ran off, saying, Vous serez bien aise d'entendre que nous allons nous retirer; bon jour, mon ami:'-It will give you great pleasure to hear that we are about to retreat: good bye, my friend.

"While the battle continued in that part, several of the wounded men and dead bodies near me, were hit by the balls which came very thick in that place. Towards evening, when the Prussians came, the continued roar of the cannon along theirs and the British line, growing louder and louder as they drew nearer, was the finest thing I ever heard. It was dusk, when two squadrons of Prussian cavalry, both of them two deep, passed over me in full trot, lifting me up from the ground, and tumbliug me about cruelly. The clatter of their approach, and the apprehensions it excited, may be easily conceived: had a gun come that way it would have done for me. The battle was nearly over, or removed to a distance; the cries and groans of the wounded all around me became every instant more and more audible, succeeding to the shouts, imprecations, and outcries of Vive l'Empereur ! the discharge of musketry and cannon; and now and then intervals of perfect silence, which were worse than the noise. I thought the night would never end. Much about this time I found a soldier of the Royals across my legs, who had probably crawled there in his agony: his weight, convulsive motions, his noises, and the air issuing through the wound in his side, distressed me greatly; the latter circumstance most of all, as the case was my own. It was not a dark night, and the

Prussians were wandering about to plunder; and the scene in Ferdinand Count Fathom came into my mind, though no women I believe were there. Several of them came, and looked on me, and passed on. At length one stopped to examine me: I told him as well as I could, for I could say but little in German, that I was a British officer, and had been plundered already. He did not desist however, but pulled me about roughly before he left me. About an hour before midnight, I saw a soldier in English uniform coming towards me: he was I suspect on the same errand. He came and looked me in my face: I spoke instantly, telling him who I was, and assuring him of a reward if he would remain by me. He said he belonged to the 40th regiment, but had missed it. He released me from the dying man: being unarmed, he took up a sword from the ground and stood over me, pacing backwards and forwards. At eight in the morning some English were seen at a distance. He ran to them, and a messenger was sent off to Harvey: a cart came for me; I was placed in it, and carried to a farm-house about a mile and a half distant, and laid in the bed from which poor Gordon, as I understood afterwards, had been just carried out. The jolting of the cart, and the difficulty of breathing were very painful. I had received seven wounds: a surgeon slept in my room, and I was saved by continual bleeding; 120 ounces in two days, besides the great loss of blood on the field.

"The lances from their length and weight, would have struck down my sword long before I lost it, had it not been bound to my hand. What became of my horse I know not; it was the best I ever had.

"The man from the Royals was still breathing when I was removed, and was soon after taken to the hospital. Sir Dennis Pack said, the greatest risk he run the whole day was in stopping his men, who were firing on me and my men when we began to charge. The French make a great clamour in action; the English only shout.

"Much confusion arose, and many mistakes, from similarity of dress. The Belgians in particular suffered greatly from their resemblance to the French; being still in the same clothes they had served in under Bonaparte."

THE GRACE OF GOD MANIFESTED.

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF MR.

SAMUEL WHITAKER,

Many years a Class-leader and Local Preacher in the Methodist Society, at Keighley, in the County of York; written partly by himself, and partly by his Son.

I was born Feb. 8th, 1735, near Baildon, in the West Riding

of Yorkshire, of poor but honest parents. The first years of my life passed without the knowledge and fear of God. In the midst of this darkness I was frequently unhappy concerning a future state, and my condition in the world to come. I believed that there was a place of happiness to which good men passed, but how to secure that place I knew not, having no instructer or guide. Thus I was left to my own childish notions; and having no rational ideas of God, I foolishly thought of slipping into heaven among the crowd, unobserved by the Sovereign Judge of mankind.

About the age of thirteen I was put apprentice to a stonemason, at Hawksworth, in the parish of Otley. And here I swam down the stream of youthful follies, along with many others.

When I was about seventeen, a few poor despised people called Methodists, began to hold prayer-meetings in the village where I then lived. These meetings I frequently attended, but to little purpose. On these occasions, a person used to give short exhortations, from which I was led to conclude that some one must have told him the state of my mind, and my sinful practices; and his remarks were so applicable, that I frequently trembled, expecting every moment to hear my name called. But, alas! on rejoining my old companions, all my religious impressions vanished like a vapour before the noon-day sun. At this period my life was a compendium of sin and repentance, hope and fear; and I have frequently stood astonished at the mercy of God, not only in sparing me, but also in preventing me from running those lengths in sin and folly which I often purposed, by embittering all my pleasures, and filling me with remorse of conscience.

About the age of twenty-one I was out of my apprenticeship, and promised myself much happiness in the common amusements of the place. One instance, among many others, I will take the liberty of mentioning. There was to be a horse-race on Harding-moor, near Bingley. My desire of participating in this pleasure was so very strong, that I paid a poor man his wages to accompany me to the place, rather than miss the pastime. But on reaching the ground my disappointment was great; it is true, I beheld three horses urged round the course in a cruel manner, by their mad riders, and I felt stung with remorse for my sin and folly in attending such a scene of dissipation. On returning home I met a funeral, and heard the passing bell. The solemn knell vibrated through my guilty conscience, as if a voice from the eternal world had addressed me. On the one hand I was stung with a sense of my numerous iniquities, and reflecting upon the condition of the soul just now departed, I considered that I too must shortly be cited before the great Judge of the world, and answer for all the transactions of my life.

A few weeks after this, I heard that a young man, a Methodist

Preacher, was to preach in a field near Bradford. This attracted my curiosity, and I went, in company with others, to hear. On reaching the place we found a large company assembled, and after some time the young man made his appearance, ascended the temporary pulpit, and read for his text, John ix. 33, 34. I remember very little of the manner in which he treated his subject, but the Lord made a deep impression on my mind while hearing the discourse; and in returning home I was confounded with a view of my crimes and depravity. These humbling views led me, through grace, to break off all my sinful companions, and to resign myself to the service of the Lord, which resolution I have been enabled to keep unto the present period.

The Sunday following it was published, that the Rev. George Whitefield was expected to preach at Haworth church, but the place being too small a scaffold was set up in the yard; and he preached from Zechariah ix. 12. I got among the crowd nearly under the scaffold, and it was the most affecting time I ever experienced. He spoke as if he had been privy to all my thoughts, words, and actions, from the tenth year of my age. At the conclusion of this service he published his preaching at Leeds the day following, where I heard him; and the day after I attended his ministry at Bradford, after which I returned home on the Tuesday evening.

On reaching home I met with a trying circumstance. My mother and sister wept over me incessantly, and used every argument in their power to withdraw me from this gloomy fit of melancholy into which they supposed me fallen. And as I was just entering on the world, they concluded that my being connected with the Methodists, whom they regarded as the firth and offscouring of all things, the very dregs of the human race, my ruin was inevitable, and I should be a vagrant in the earth. And on reaching my master's he met me with a frown, and discharged me from his house and employment, having supplied my place with another man. Thus I had to go in search of work. While in pursuit of labour I met with a darling pleasure, viz. an otter hunt on the water, nor could I refrain from the sport for some time. But the Divine hand interposed, and I was enabled to abandon the folly, and returned home, being unsuccessful in obtaining work. On going to my master's for the purpose of removing my tools and clothes, he was more friendly, and said that if I would promise to settle and attend my labour, and not leave without proper notice, I might go to work. I gladly embraced the offer, and returned to my place.

Soon after this I met with another difficulty from some of my former companions, and more especially a young woman, who endeavoured to rally me out of the little religion I had; but through mercy I escaped, though not without the loss of many