Add MS 69850

THE WATERLOO DESPATCH: autograph draft, by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, of his despatch addressed to Henry, 3rd Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for War, announcing and describing the Allies' decisive victory over Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo; 19 June 1815. The fair copy, signed by Wellington and taken to Bathurst by Major The Hon. Henry Percy, is now held by the Public Record Office, WO 1/205, ff. 313-316.

The present manuscript consists of four bifolia, one single folio containing the conclusion to the main despatch, one part folio bearing the last part of the main despatch and a postscript, and a separate envelope of a later date bearing annotations relating to the despatch. All the text and amendments appear to be in Wellington's hand, but two anonymous hands occur on f. 9v, and a third on the separate envelope (f. i), dating from 1853 or later, according to its watermark. There are also some indecipherable pencil marks, possibly modern, in the right-hand margin of f. 8v. The draft contains a number of deletions,and alterations in pencil and ink; most of the words deleted can be deciphered and the changes made were all of little importance. One or two names were left blank and some redrafting was made as new information became available. Some lines marked for deletion in fact appeared in the final published version. These passages were perhaps to have been omitted from another projected version (see below).

The present text agrees generally with that published in The London Gazette Extraordinary for June 22 1815, but lacks the second postscript and the appended list of dead and wounded. Lt.-Col. John Gurwood, The Dispatches of . . . the Duke of Wellington . . . 1799 to 1815, vol. XII (1838), pp. 478-487, published much the same version of the despatch as that found in the present manuscript. Thus it differs slightly from the wording in the Gazette and omits the latter's extra material; however, Gurwood also printed a full return of the campaign dead and injured which had not been available to the Duke when the Waterloo despatch was sent. It is possible that the early drafts of the matter missing from this manuscript and from Gurwood were mislaid at an early stage. While it seems much more likely that Wellington was adding information to his despatch as it came to him, and probably no early drafts of the latest material were made, in at least one place, however (p. 484, third paragraph), Gurwood's printed version of the despatch is both a slightly different one from that found in the Gazette and a corrected version of the present draft (f. 8v); it is still possible, therefore, that some material has disappeared. Some of the pencil additions in Wellington's hand indicate that at some stage he was planning another version of the despatch, to be addressed to the King but presumably sent to the Prince Regent. It is not certain whether it was ever sent.

The document is dated 19 June 1815 and purports to have been written at Waterloo. Probably, however, some work was undertaken on the despatch at Brussels, as has been suspected. The version sent is headed 'Waterloo', but the copier could simply have been writing out what was placed in front of him. The first postscript, relating to the death of Maj.-Gen. Ponsonby and to the sending of three imperial eagles taken in the action to the Prince Regent in London, and the second postscript, together with the list of dead and wounded not found in the draft, may have been written at this later time. A marginal note (f. 5v) relating to the outstanding action by Maj.-Gen. Ponsonby and his troops, later to be incorporated in the final text, may also have been added at Brussels. It very probably dates from the time of the Duke's drafting of the first postscript (see above), and so is later than the main part of the draft. Moreover, the 'three eagles' and the Ponsonby passages do appear on a separate scrap of paper (f. 10). Against this is the fact that in the Gazette version of the first postscript the number of eagles - or standards - taken to England is given as two. It is clear that this postscript was also later revised, and so could still have been drafted originally at Waterloo. Probably all the despatch save the second postscript, the casualty list, and some last-minute corrections was drafted close to the field of battle.

The present document has been reproduced (first page only) in Reginald Colby, The Waterloo Despatch (1965); Victor Percival, The Duke of Wellington (1969), pp. 54-55; and Elizabeth Longford, Wellington - The Years of the Sword (1969), ill. 54. For an example of a contemporary popular version of the despatch see The Battle of Waterloo./Containing the Duke of Wellington's dispatch to Earl Bathurst, . . . (Edinburgh, [1815?]), British Library press-mark 1078. k. 15. For copies by Gurwood of some of Wellington's despatches, (but not the present document), see Add. 38522. For other official and semi-official papers relating to the Battle of Waterloo see Add. 19590. On loan to the British Library since 1976 as Loan no. 66. Purchased from the Duke of Wellington, Jan. 1990, the National Heritage Memorial Fund contributing most of the purchase price.

Paper; ff. i+10. 320 x 200mm. Part-sheet 156 x 200mm. approx. Water-marks: Britannia and S. and C. Wise, 1811.