I return you my most sincere thanks for your kind letter of the 2nd
inst., and though you have not been successful in your application to
the Belgian authorities in my behalf, I know full well that you did
your utmost, and am only sorry that at my instigation you attempted
an impossibility.

The Belgians seem either not to know or not to care for the opinion
of the great Cyrus who gives this advice to his captains. 'Take no
heed from what countries ye fill up your ranks, but seek recruits as
ye do horses, not those particularly who are of your own country, but
those of merit.' The Belgians will only have such recruits as are
born in Belgium, and when we consider the heroic manner in which the
native Belgian army defended the person of their new sovereign in the
last conflict with the Dutch, can we blame them for their
determination? It is rather singular, however, that resolved as they
are to be served only by themselves they should have sent for 5000
Frenchmen to clear their country of a handful of Hollanders, who have
generally been considered the most unwarlike people in Europe, but
who, if they had fair play given them, would long ere this time have
replanted the Orange flag on the towers of Brussels, and made the
Belgians what they deserve to be, hewers of wood and drawers of
water.

And now, my dear Sir, allow me to reply to a very important part of
your letter; you ask me whether I wish to purchase a commission in
the British service, because in that case you would speak to the
Secretary at War about me. I must inform you therefore that my name
has been for several years upon the list for the purchase of a
commission, and I have never yet had sufficient interest to procure
an appointment. If I can do nothing better I shall be very glad to