my. The mock trial was soon ended; the Russian patriots were ordered to immediate execution, and died with the assurance and constancy of true virtue.There are some persons who have pretended to apologise for this act of judicial murder, and who have even ventured to maintain, before in sulted humanity, that these proceed ings were conformable to the law of nations. Their arguments are puerile, as their feelings have always been base; and the mere statement of the fact, that a hundred loyal Russians, who were faithful to their allegiance, and sacrificed their lives to the chance of annoying their invaders, were punished as criminals, must be enough to raise against the perpetrators of such enormities the universal hatred of mankind. Buonaparte was in possession of Moscow, no doubt; but every Russian, whether soldier or citizen, owed it to his emperor and his country, that he should do every thing in his power to dislodge the enemy. It is only since the French revolution has made the world familiar with crimes, and habituated the mind to the most daring violations of international law, that invaders have pretended to chastise the faithful inhabitants of an insulted country for rising in its defence. The sacred law of self-preservation calls on every man, when his country is invaded, to arm in its support; and from the moment he does so he is a soldier. It was the duty of the Russian army to have dislodged the inva. der from Moscow, by all the means which it could employ; and the same was the duty of every loyal and patriotic citizen. When Buonaparte therefore dared to punish with death the brave men who tried to expel him and his soldiers from the ancient capital of their country, by the only means which fortune had now left them, he committed a more flagrant outrage on public law and on humanity than ever be

fore occurred in the history even of his own life, already stained with every species of atrocity.

The cruelties of a tyrant begin and end in cowardice. It was fear that induced Buonaparte to make that terrible example; and after he made it, his fears seemed still to increase. He was afraid that the attempt to burn the Kremlin would be repeated; and he consented to become a prisoner in this palace, and ordered that every entrance to it should be shut, except one which was open only to his favourites and confidential officers. His efforts, however, to preserve Moscow were unavailing, although his pride and his necessities equally called upon him to save it from destruction. He had promised the wealth of this capital as the reward of his soldiers; its spacious palaces as their retreat for the winter; and he had anxiously expected that from this great city he should give the law to the Russian empire, and consummate his authority on the conti nent. But the flames were spread. ing rapidly in all directions, and the entire destruction of Moscow already seemed inevitable. The description even of an eye-witness must convey but an imperfect idea of this scene of hor ror; yet as it can afford the only ap proximation to truth, the following sketch shall be inserted." From the night of yesterday, September 14th," says the narrator," until that of the 19th, the fire, blazed in all quarters. It first broke out near the Foundling Hospital, and almost immediately afterwards on the side of the city close to the Stone Bridge, and in the neigh bourhood of the palace which the King of Naples selected for his resi dence. A third and more extensive fire broke out and spread itself along the centre of the town. The inbabi tants beheld their burning houses with a resignation which evidently proceeded from the belief that they should not

long survive their destruction. The conviction that their losses would be deprivations to the enemy also; that in the flames perished his most important resources, was their sincere con solation. New fires broke forth where ever the French soldiers directed their ruthless steps. Women cast themselves into the flames to escape insult; and no sacrifice to patriotism was left unperformed. On the morning of the third day after the entrance of the enemy a violent wind arose, and then indeed the conflagration became general. In less than an hour the whole extent of the capital for many versts seemed a sheet of flame. The immense tract of land above the river, which was formerly covered with houses, was one sea of fire; and the sky was hidden from our eyes by the tremendous volumes of smoke which rolled over the city. Dreadful as was the calamity, though it even menaced the lives of our destroyers, yet they felt no pity; not a touch of remorse came near their obdurate hearts. Still they proceeded in search of plunder; still they heaped crime upon crime, and aggravated, by every act of cruelty, the tremendous horrors of the scene. Surely the Almighty Judge, in his utmost wrath, never before presented so awful a spectacle to mankind. Where was there an asylum, at this awful moment, for suffering humanity?-where for feeble age, shrinking from the impending ruin? where for the bleeding limbs of the young patriot-where for the frantic majd, flying from the grasp of the lawless ruffian? There was no refuge on earth; and guilt, for a time, had its triumph. Napoleon, from the windows of the Kremlin, must have con templated the progress of this deluge of destruction. While he shuddered, for his own sake, at the stormy ocean of fire swelling on all sides, and urging its waves towards him, he must

assuredly have been visited by some feelings of horror, and have dreaded that the hour should come, when he must account for the scene before him to the Being, by whom himself and all the creatures now perishing in his sight were alike created. If ever his conscience has spoken-if ever it has made itself heard, it was in one of these dreadful nights. The flames of Moscow must have been to him the torch of the furies!"-This scene of horrors had indeed some effect on the mind of Buonaparte; but the impulse which directed him was of a nature entirely selfish. He foresaw that he would have need of Moscow entire, to shelter his followers during the winter; and he therefore exerted himself, although without effect, to arrest the progress of the flames, and to restore order in the city by the semblance of civil authority. By threats and promises, he at last prevailed on a few wretches, at the head of whom was M. Lesseps, the ci devant French consul at St Petersburgh, to assume the functions of civil magistracy; but their authority was disregarded, and their persons insulted even in the streets of Moscow.-The French ruler had already committed himself too far with his soldiers to venture on the prompt chastisement of the enormities which they were now perpetrating; he had promised them the plunder of Moscow, and they determined that he should keep his word.-When he came within sight of the capital, he said to his soldiers, "Behold the end of your campaign; its gold and its plenty are yours ;" and after all the disappointments which they had already experienced in this luckless campaign, it might have been dangerous for their chief had he dared to restrain them.Examples were at last made of one or two of the most atrocious delinquents; but even these were without effect on the army: the invaders still advanced

in their career of guilt; their discipline and activity relaxed apace, until their excesses became so great as to contribute in no small degree to the awful catastrophe which was approaching.

The Russian army, after various manœuvres which deceived the enemy, took up the position which had been selected by the counsels of their chief. Their right stretched across the Toula road, their centre occupied the old, and their left the new Kalouga road; and by this disposition the most fertile provinces of the empire were placed beyond the enemy's grasp. General Dochtoroff was sent towards Monjaisk to act in the rear of the French; and Cossacks were employed in all directions to interrupt their supplies. Thus was the French army in a great measure surrounded without any hope but in retreat, and that a retreat which threatened the most serious difficulties. The whole Russian empire was in a state of activity; and reinforcements of regular and irregular troops were arriving every day to secure the annihilation of the invaders. It is a remarkable circumstance, that the enemy remained for some time in perfect ignorance as to the numbers and position of the Russian armies, and seem to have enjoyed the fallacious security of a moment. He may have thought that the Russians had for ever abandoned the cause of the empire; and that, overwhelmed with despondency by the fall of Moscow, they had lost all their spirit, and had begun to despair. From this vain dream, however, he was roused by the appearance of Russian forces in his rear; for Winzengerode, who had been stationed at Twer, had already sent forward parties of his troops to Monjaisk, and got into communication with detachments from the grand army. These movements were no less

honourable to the Russian chiefs than discreditable to their enemies, to whom they remained so long unknown. The French, however, when they heard of the advance of the Russians, dispatched from Moscow strong divisions to occupy all the adjoining roads by which a surprise might have been at tempted.

But the French ruler was now awakened from his vision of conquest, and all the horrors of his situation at once opened to his view. His soldiers became turbulent and clamorous; they demanded from their leader that peace which he had promised to dictate in the Russian capital. The blood through which they had waded to Moscow, had never for a moment inspired them with one sentiment of pity or remorse; but the awful retribution which they now saw inevitable, and of which they were to become the victims, speedily changed their resolution. Buonaparte saw at once the perils of his situation; he perceived that peace could now afford the only hope to him and his followers; but he was yet unwil ling to stoop from the attitude of conquest, and to implore the forbearance of those whom he had so deeply injured. His dignity seemed still to require that he should be addressed as a conqueror; and he was perhaps afraid, that, if he had talked of peace, the weakness of his situation, and the extent of his fears, must have been exposed to his enemy. He waited, therefore, in anxious expectation, that proposals of some kind might come from Russia; he trusted to his erroneous impressions of the character of the Russian government and people; but all his expectations were disappointed. The fatal delay which he required as a sacrifice to his pride, was increasing his difficulties every moment; his stores were exhausted, his supplies intercepted, and already his

troops had become the victims of famine and disease. They were impatient from suffering, and despised all the rules of discipline; the efforts of their leaders to restrain their discontent were unavailing. Famine forced them to the most dreadful extremities; they sallied forth into the adjoining country in quest of sustenance, and fell a sacrifice to the peasantry, who watched their movements with vindic

tive ferocity. It was obvious, therefore, that to keep them longer in the position which they occupied, would be to expose them to lingering but inevitable destruction. The pride of Buonaparte was humbled; he was at last compelled to give way to circumstances, and to sue for peace to those, over whom, but a few short weeks before, he had pretended to exercise the rights of conquest.

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The effort which the French ruler was compelled to make was humiliating in the extreme; and he endeavoured to disguise its real character by affecting, as usual, a sincere desire for the repose of nations. It is a singular circumstance, that this disturber of the peace of Europe, whose life beamid scenes of bloodshed and misery, has on all occasions been the first to profess an ardent desire of peace, and to affect the greatest sympathy with the sufferings of humanity. It is easy to account for this in the vulgar way, by saying that such professions were the result of mere artifice on the part of this personage, whose conviction of the great share which he has had in all the commotions of the last fifteen years, and of the odium which such a course must have brought upon his name, may have led him to hope to counteract it by professions of more than ordinary warmth for the happiness of his fellow creatures. There is another view of his character, however, which may perhaps afford a better explanation of

this singularity. Buonaparte has never desired peace, except when he had either obtained the ultimate objects of war, or had at all events made as great progress towards them as circumstances at the time would permit ; and as soon as this point was gained, surely no man had so much reason to wish for peace, as the person to whom a general pacification promised to secure the grand points of his ambition.-Some persons. have very much admired the magnanimity of the man, who, in the moment of victory, so frequently offered terms of peace to his enemy; but they should recollect, that as soon as victory had conducted him to his immediate end, it became his manifest interest to secure, by treaty, what he held but on a precarious footing-what he owed to the chance of war, and could never, from the nature of his authority, claim in virtue of any title hitherto recognized in modern Europe. Buonaparte was a mere soldier; he recollected that the acquisitiens of a soldier and an usurper are held by a precarious tenure, and he wished, on all occasions, to superadd to the right of conquest the solid title which is conferred by the principles of political and international law. With a wise deference to the prejudices of human nature, he preferred the acquisition of a territory by treaty to the occupation of it by force, and prudently endeavoured to sink the soldier in the politician.

General Lauriston, a favourite diplomatist of Buonaparte, was sent with flag of truce to the Russian head-quarters. After an idle preface about the anxiety of his master to prevent the farther effusion of blood, he announced the readiness of Buonaparte still to treat with the Russian court. The answer of Prince Kutusoff was resolute; he said, that, as to the effusion of blood, there was no Russian who would not sacrifice his life in this

contest, and that no terms could be entered into while an enemy remained within the Russian territory.-Buonaparte was incensed by this refusal; but as the discontent of his army became more alarming than ever, he affected to believe that Kutusoff had exceeded his powers in this peremptory rejection of the French proposals, and that as soon as they should reach the Emperor Alexander, negociations would be opened. The most extravagant reports were in the mean time circulated throughout the French army; Riga, it was pretended, had been taken by assault; Macdonald had entered Petersburgh in triumph; a large convoy was on its way to the relief of the grand army; and the sufferings of the Russians were yet more severe than those of their enemies. While these efforts were made to deceive the soldiers, famine and disease spread their ravages throughout the camp; the Russian armies were already beginning to inflict that signal chastisement, the account of which will afterwards form so prominent a feature in the history of this memorable campaign.

and

The Russian Generals Dochtoroff, Korff, Milaradovitch, and Winzengerode, who, with their detached corps, occupied all the roads which surrounded Moscow, cut off the supplies, dispersed the straggling parties of the enemy, and took many prisoners.The sufferings and discontent of the French increased; and yet there was no intelligence that the proposals of their ruler had been listened to at St Petersburgh. They now saw be fore them nothing but the prospect of the most cruel and lingering death; and their suspicions of their leader, by whom they had been betrayed, were confirmed. He saw this, and once more humbled himself so far, as to send Count Lauriston to the Russian head quarters, to demand, that if Prince Kutusoff would not listen to

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negociation, he should forward a letter from Buonaparte to the Emperor Alexander. "I will do that," (replied Kutusoff) " provided the word peace is not expressed in that letter. I would not be a party in such an insult to my sovereign, nor have a hand in forwarding to him, what he would instantly order to be destroyed in his presence. You already know on what terms alone offers of peace will be attended to. His imperial majesty, we know, will keep firm to his resolves, as we shall stand stedfast in ours to support the independence of the empire." This reply was noble, and altogether worthy of the great general to whom it has been ascribed. It may be remarked, however, that he scems to have entertained the strongest dislike to the interference of his master in these momentous negociations, and was very unwilling that any offers of peace from Buonaparte should be allowed to reach his ear. He assigns a reason for this, which is in the highest degree flattering to the character of the emperor;

but there are some who have put a different interpretation on this transaction, and have insinuated that the firmness of Alexander might have been shaken by the arti fices of his enemy. That the beneficent feelings of this great monarch might have been in some measure at variance with his policy, when the war was first undertaken, is extremely pro bable; but after the destruction of Moscow, and the forlorn condition of the invader, were known to him, it is difficult to discover what inducement he could have had to relax in his po licy. The die was cast the measure of Russian suffering had now been filled up; retribution was ready to overtake the foe; and in such circumstances, could the mildest and most paternal of sovereigns have interposed to arrest its progress? The prince might with all safety have trusted to