the entrenchments which the enemy had thrown up at four positions, driving them back upon the Jeser. The next day they were again attacked, and driven under the guns of Everabaca on the Drina; that fortress enabled them to make a stand, and they were thus enabled to retire into Bosnia without farther molestation. Collecting fresh forces there, they reentered Servia, and at their first inroad were successful. Nenadowitsch followed, and again put them to the rout, after a battle in which both sides suffered considerable loss. The Pasha of Zwowick was made prisoner. The Turkish artillery in all these actions was well served, under the direction of French officers, who, it is highly probable, acted with the secret permission of their own government. It is perfectly consistent with the policy of Buonaparte to provide the Turks with engineers, while he was in strict alliance with Russia. On the other side, the Servians were less successful; the enemy obtained possession of all that part upon the Morava which extends from Passarowitz to Takis and Nagodin, and part of the army from the Drina was detached to make head against them on the left bank of the river. After the victories which Nenadowitsch had gained, they could be spared from that quarter; and Czerni George expected at this time to have found sufficient employment for the Turks in Bosnia, by an insurrection which had been concerted with the Greeks in that country. Unfortunately,-for every failure of a christian people to throw off the mussulman yoke must be considered unfortunate, the plan was discovered, and the Turks punished it with those devilish cruelties which from the earliest ages have rendered their history hateful,

Meantime the most vigorous means were used by the Porte to strengthen its armies. In Russia, also, a ukase was issued for recruiting the army and navy, with one male out of every hundred throughout the whole empire. Prince Bagrathion, who had now the command upon the Danube, prosecuted the advantages which had already been obtained. 20,000 Turks, under the Seraskier Gorrew Pasha, were defeated with a loss which, if it be not greatly exaggerated, proves how resolutely they defended themselves. A fourth part of their whole number is said to have fallen in the field. 15 cannon were taken and 30 standards, among which were the banners of the Seraskier. They who escaped fled in disorder to Kutsgun and Silistria; the former fortress speedily surrendered to the conquerors, and they soon possessed themselves of Kesterdschi and Magolia on the Black Sea. Shortly afterwards Ismael surrendered. The massacre which that strange barbarian Suvarrof suffered his soldiers to commit there on its former capture, has made this place remarkable. Its fall was now scarcely heard of; in fact, the whole war excited no interest in the civilized parts of Europe; a few brief notices, almost as dry and uncircumstantial as the sentences of a monkish chronicler, when he comprized the events from Adam to his own days in the blank leaf of a missal, are all the materials for the annalist in this portion of his task. For a war equally unimport ant in its cause and its consequences they are sufficient; but concerning Servia, it is to be wished that the documents were more ample. That country offers something for our admiration and our hope.

Sept. 14.

The Russians proceeded against

Silistria and Mangata: the loss of the latter place would distress Constantinople, which draws from thence a supply of salt, and of many other articles of necessity; and the court gazette of Petersburgh announced, that both fortresses were to be evacuated as soon as the troops appeared before them. The success of Prince Bagrathion, who defeated a body of 5000 cavalry attempting to pass from Rudschuck to Silistria, and who in another action pursued the Turks to the walls of that place, seemed to justify this confidence. He encamped before it, and sent a detachment, which took possession of Mangata without resistance. But the Porte at this time displayed more vigour than Alexander expected. The greater part of the troops which were acting against the Servians were diverted to meet the more pressing danger, thus affording an opportunity to Czerni George and his brave countrymen to strengthen themselves and repair their losses; and all the reinforcements which the severest measures could assemble were expedited towards Silistria, under the grand vizir. The second in command was a native of Lithuania, by name Gleyzsor, who had fought under Kosciusco, and like him fallen into the hands of the Russians. It is grievous to think of the fate of those men, who adventured so generously and so heroically in that righteous cause when so many have been made the victims, and, still more unhappily, the instruments of Buonaparte's accursed ambition, the Pole must be considered as comparatively fortunate who, while he is employed in no worse service than that of the Turks, had an opportunity afforded him of gratifying at least his indi

vidual vengeance against the cruel usurpers of his country. On the 22d of October they attacked the besieging army, and a desperate action ensued; both armies came to the sword, and the battle continued till night, when the arrival of a body of Albanian cavalry decided the victory for the Turks. The Russians effected a retreat to their entrenched camp: a second action took place, in which they were again defeated, and the loss which they sustained was such that they found it necessary to recross the Danube. Both parties were now too much exhausted for any operations of importance during the winter. The Servians obtained another armistice, and carried on negociations which it was not possible could terminate in peace; but the interval was to their advantage, because they acted wholly upon the defensive, and the time thus gained was employed in new preparations for defence."

Caulincourt, (the man who arrested the Duc d'Enghien,) at this time minister at Constantinople, persuaded Alexander that English agents, in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia, were plotting in favour of the Turks, and that dispatches of the greatest importance had been intercepted on their way to England by means of Dutch smugglers and fishing boats. The fact, that Alexander should have believed this, is worthy of notice for the absurdity of the supposition. He might as reasonably have imputed to us a revolt of the Circassians, which broke out during the summer of this year. These barbarians, among whom it is the pride of the higher classes when they are not employed in war, or in hunting, or in drinking, to sit still, say little, and do nothing, cross

ed the river Cuban in great numbers, and, pouring into the plains, began to plunder the country. The government of New Russia, where the Duc de Richelieu held the command, was threatened by this invasion. Fortunately for the Russians they had a squadron, under the Marquis de Traverse, then in the Black Sea, and he determined immediately to attack the town of Anapa. For this purpose he disembarked a body of troops to approach it on the land side, and attacked it with the ships from the sea. They won the town, and, pursuing their success, dispersed such bodies of the Circassians as ventured to make head against them, and sent out two detachments, which ventured as far as they durst into the country, and burn

ed the villages. The marquis then issued a proclamation, requiring the inhabitants to submit, and denouncing the most dreadful vengeance if they continued in rebellion. No farther proceedings were heard of: the Circassians probably did not chuse to expose themselves again against regular troops, and Russia was too much employed to think of punishing them for what had past.

This movement in Circassia was ascribed to the influence of the Turks, and it operated as a diversion in their favour. On the side of Syria also the Porte received favourable intelligence. The Pasha of Damascus reduced Tripoli to obedience, which for many years had thrown off its allegiance,

THE events which have already been recorded in this volume would in former times have been thought to make the year remarkable in history; but its most important transactions are yet to be related. These minor revolutions and ordinary wars may lead hereafter to consequences of more moment than can now be foreseen; and, be that as it may, it is the duty of an annalist diligently to perform his office in all its parts. We come now to matters of higher import: the war of the peninsula, like the great contest between Greece and Persia, involves the dearest interests of humanity, and its story must therefore for ever continue to affect and to influence mankind.

The defeat of all the Spanish armies, the betrayal of Madrid, the flight of Sir John Moore, and the embarkation of the British army, were the melancholy events with which the annals of the preceding year concluded. It is necessary to go back a few weeks, and trace the movements of the army under Castanos after its defeat. When the fate of the day at Tudela was manifestly hopeless,

Nov. 23.

1808.

the greater part of the right wing, which consisted of Aragoneze and Valencians, and some of the central division also, dispersed, and escaping how they could from the field, assembled again at Zaragoza, where they were destined to close their career most disastrously, yet most gloriously. The first and third divisions were at Tarazona when the battle was fought. The fourth, which was the reserve, repelled repeated attacks of the enemy at Cascante till after the darkness had closed; then it retreated and joined the others at Tarazona: the second also arrived there. This division had been ordered to support the fourth; but though it received these orders at noon, and the distance which it had to march was only two leagues, either from incapacity or treason in some of its leaders, it did not arrive till night, when its assistance was no longer useful. As soon as these four divisions were collected, Castanos ordered them immediately to begin their march by way of Borja to Calatayud. It was now midnight, and at the mo

ment when they were setting forward, a chapel, which had served as a magazine for ammunition, blew up: Many shells went off after the explosion. This occasioned an opinion that an enemy's battery might be playing upon them; and the royal carabineers, undismayed in the midst of the confusion, presented themselves sword in hand to charge the chapel, fancying it was occupied by the French. Presently a cry of treason was set up, and it spread rapidly through the ranks, because the troops, being ignorant of the calamitous result of the battle, were surprised at the order to retreat; for in the morning what they had seen of the action on the left of the line from the heights, had been in favour of the patriots, the action in fact having commenced on that side to their advantage; the men, therefore, could not understand why they were ordered to retreat, and at so inauspicious an hour;-a general distrust prevailed, some corps dispersed, and they who remained together were in a state of perilous insubordination. However, they retreated as they were ordered, through Borja and Riela, without stopping in either place, and on the night of the 25th reached Calatayud.

On that same day the French general Mathieu entered Borja in pur. suit, too late, however, to make any prisoners. Ney arrived on the day following. He had been ordered to reach Agreda with his division on the 23d, that he might cut off the retreat of this army, whose total destruction Buonaparte considered as

certain as its defeat. Ney's rapacity frustrated the expectations of his ty rant master. The people of Soria, forgetful of the memorable example which the Numantines had set them upon that very ground, opened their gates to the enemy. This however did not save them from being plundered. Their church and their rich wool factors afforded a rich booty to the French; and it was for the sake of this pillage, and of extorting all he could from the inhabitants, that Ney remained there three days; not because he had overmarched his men, and they were unable to proceed, as he reported to Buonaparte, and as was repeated in the bulletins.† This delay enabled Castanos with the wreck of his army to reach Calatayud. They had thus escaped the danger of the immediate pursuit, but there were no magazines or stores here; the system of supplying the troops, incompletely organized as it had always been, was at an end, and the military chest, which contained two millions of reales, had been conveyed to Zaragoza. Desperate with sufferings and hunger, the men broke through all restraint, and the inhabitants fed from their houses, equally terrified at the outrages of their own soldiers and at the vicinity of the French. The muleteers attached to the baggage and artillery, who could neither obtain payment for the use of their beasts, nor food either for the animals or themselves, cursed their unhappy fortune; such as could find an opportunity threw away the baggage, mounted their beasts, and rode away;