the army, the utmost tranquillity was ensured. Berlin, at the time of its occupation, notwithstanding previous removals, abounded with military stores of arms and ammunition, which the precipitate approach of Bonaparte, the rapidity of whose march, agreeably to his own expression, almost outstripped that of his renown, had prevented the possibility of withdrawing. The supreme provisional government of the conquered country of Prussia was committed to General Clark, and divided into four departments, Berlin, Custrin, Stettin, and Magdeburgh: and, every arrangement being made that circumstances could require, Bonaparte proceeded from the capital of Prussia towards that of Poland, to which several divisions of his army were advancing before him.

During the time in which the emperor of the French was enjoying himself in comparative leisure and full tranquillity in the palace of Berlin, admiring the novelty of the scene and the relics of military greatness, reviewing his troops on the very spot on which the armies of Frederic had so often exhibited those precise and brilliant evolutions which rendered them the admiration of the age, but who did not exceed the present performers on that scene, the king of Prussia was experiencing all the regretful feelings of an exile, and the alarms natural on the loss of a kingdom, for the recovery of which he had reason to fear that he must be obliged more to the moderation of the conqueror, than to any remaining resources of his own. In the course of a few days his army had been completely scattered and ruined. The army of Westphalia, under General Blucher; the left division, under Prince Hohenloe; the reserve, under the Prince of Wurtemburg; the army under his own immediate inspection, commanded by the Duke of Weimar, had comprehended a mass of military power which he had represented to his imagination as almost irresistible: yet nearly all had now disappeared. Of 146,000 which these divisions comprised, a considerable number had been destroyed, wounded, or taken in the fatal contest at Jena. Of the rest, various corps, after wandering

amidst inextricable difficulties, and exhibiting an enterprise and perseverance worthy of a better fate, had been obliged to surrender to the superor forces of the enemy, while some others, as if struck with consternation or despair, and imagining themselves to be assailed by an enemy of more than mortal prowess, yielded up one after another, positions of extreme consequence and susceptible of considerable defence. By these positions, at least, it might have been hoped that the progress of the victorious French might have been checked till time had been furnished for a recovery from the first impressions of dismay, and some judicious attemps might have been made to retrieve as much as possible the disasters of the grand defeat. Yet his fortresses made little or no resistance. They appeared as if incapable of affording annoyance to the enemy or security to their garrisons. The armies, the garrisons, and the magazines of the unfortunate monarch, were lost to him with such rapidity of successive disaster, that he might doubt, at certain moments, the reality of facts and the testimony of his senses. After his retreat to Custrin, the approaches of the enemy speedily produced the necessity of his further removal, and Koningsburg became the place of his residence and the rallying point of the wreck of his forces. Here the last regiments of the monarchy collected around him, from New and Old East Prussia. According to some accounts they amonnted to thirty-three battalions and fortyfive squadrons, constituting, in the whole, a force of nearly fifty thousand men; although it may reasonably be doubted whether even this number could be brought together. But to whatever amount the force here stationed actually extended, it formed the only remains of the royal army, and awaited the accession of Prussian reinforcements, or the arrival of whatever assistance might at length be communicated by the Emperor of Russia.

The elector of Saxony was excused by Bonaparte for joining the Prussian armies, as having been compelled into the service; and six thousand of his troops were dismissed on

their parole immediately after the battle of Jena. The elector of Hesse, as having acted treacherously, was condemned to be deprived of his dominions; as was also the Duke of Brunswick for encouraging a war, which he ought to have used his influence to prevent;' a sentence which this unfortunate prince survived only a few days, dying of his wounds, aggravated by anxiety, at Altona, whither he had been carried after the battle, by his servants, in a litter, to be completely beyond the reach of the enemy. Mecklenburg was also taken possession of, and its government subverted; but its destiny was postponed, and to be regulated by the conduct of Russia.

Bonaparte now issued his famous decrees at Berlin, placing the British isles in a state of blockade; all English manufacture found in Hamburg was seized, and the greatest activity used to effect the utter exclusion of British intercourse with the continent. In the mean time the advanced guard of the Russian army crossed the Vistula. But the French army at Warsaw compelled them about the close of November to recross the river.

After the retreat of Benningsen over the Vistula, he still continued to recede; not only as his forces, even when joined with those of Buxhovden, would be considerably inferior to the forces of the enemy, but also on the general idea of the desirableness of drawing on the French as far as possible into Poland. The general in chief of the Russians, however, Kamenskoi, having at length arrived at the Russian camp, by no means approved of these delays and cautions, and seemed to consider the honour of the army as tarnished by its receding before the enemy, who would not fail, it was observed, to ascribe this to fear, and would derive considerable advantage from the high-spirited confidence which such an idea would excite in them. The king of Prussia, too, was somewhat indisposed to procrastination, and imagined, that the longer his capital remained in the power of the enemy, the less anxious it might be to receive again its former master. Soon after the arrival, therefore, of Kamenskoi, from St. Peters

burg, which was celebrated by the troops with the strongest demonstrations of joy, and inspired unbounded hopes of success, the retrogade movements of the army were checked. and they began to advance, having their head-quarters at Pultusk. They were ordered to prevent the French from passing the Narew, to retake Praga, and to fix their station on the banks of the Vistula. Amidst the joy at General Kamenskoi's arrival, however, the Narew was actually passed by a French detachment of 800 men at its junction with the Ukra; and Bonaparte, who had quitted Posen on the first indication of this disposition in the Russians for offensive operations, arranged the various divisions of his army accordingly. Marshal Ney had been for some time in possession of Thorn. He united the different corps at Gullup. Marshal Bessieres, with the second corps of reserve cavalry, proceeded from Thorn to Biezun. Bernadotte proceeded with his division to support them. Marshal Soult passed the Vistula opposite Plock, and Marshal Augereau at Lackrocyn, where a bridge was erected by the greatest exertions, who also were employed to establish one over the Narew. The latter being completed, the reserve of cavalry passed by the Vistula at Praga, followed by the emperor, on their march to the Narew, where the whole force of Marshal Davoust was collected. An engagement almost immediately took place. The event of the day was in favour of the French, in consequence of the injudicious arrangements of the Russian general, whose retreat was accomplished after the loss of 1600 prisoners, and 25 pieces of cannon.

Over a corps of Prussians, consisting of six thousand infantry and one thousand cavalry, considerable success was obtained by a corps of Marshal Ney at Soldaw; while Marshal Bessieres took several pieces of cannon and five hundred prisoners from another detachment of the same troops, breaking their line, and driving them into the morasses, near the village of Carmeden. These successes, however, were only preliminary to an affair of more importance, which closed the

military operations of the year, and which occurred on the 26th of December in the vicinity of Pultusk. In the morning of that day Marshal Lannes arrived opposite to Pultusk, where the whole corps of General Benningsen had assembled during the night. About ten the attack was commenced by the marshal, and was received by the Russians with great firmness. The contest lasted with considerable vicissitude for some time, and with great obstinacy, but at length terminated in the route of the Russians. General Buxhovden, in the mean time, about noon, had assembled the different corps of his army at Golymin. Several divisions which had been beaten the evening before, had now reached the camp, particularly one from Nasielsk, pursued by Marshal Davoust so closely that he charged them near Golymin, and afterwards took up his position in an adjoining wood. Augereau, arriving at the same time, took the enemy in flank, while another French general deprived the Russians of a point of support which they derived from a village, and at three o'clock the division of General Hendelet formed in line, and advanced against the Russian army. The fire was extremely hot, and the contest lasted, notwithstanding several impetuous and successful charges of the Duke of Berg's cavalry, till eleven o'clock; when a retreat was ordered by the Russian commander to Ostrolenka. Marshal Soult had in the mean while arrived so near the scene of action, that, if the slough following the rain and thaw had not extremely impeded his further progress, scarcely any portion of the Russian army could have escaped destruction. This circumstance checked the accomplishment of a plan which would have completed the fate of the Russian army on this side the Orege. The loss in both these actions, on the part of Bonaparte, was admitted to have been scarcely less than three thousand men: that of the Russians consisted of about twelve thousand killed, wounded, and taken, eighty pieces of cannon, and about twelve hundred baggage waggons; and was followed, as the Russians themselves were obliged to allow, by the immediate retreat of their