co-operate with General Lestocq. The Russian commander-inchief passed the night of the 13th at Friedland. Wilson was there too.

At four next morning the cannonade began. Two Russian divisions were thrown across the Aller. Out of this movement grew the battle. The Russians were ill-placed, and their number did not exceed forty thousand men. They were nevertheless successful on the whole till late in the forenoon, when the French, being reinforced, pushed forward again with fresh vigour. Later, Napoleon himself arrived with his army. The Russians had already lost near twelve thousand men,' several generals, and many officers. The French advanced in superior numbers, and with an immense artillery. The Russians retired fighting most gallantly to the bridge, which they recrossed and burnt. They carried off with them every standard and every gun, with the exception of nineteen, part of which went into the river. Their loss in men was computed at twenty thousand. The enemy also must have suffered heavy losses in so long and sanguinary a conflict.

Sir Robert allows nearly as little credit to the conqueror as to the defeated general. Never,' he says, 'was an army so cruelly sacrificed by the most wicked ignorance; and although Buonaparte, with a superiority of above 40,000 men, has gained the day, he has only had the fortune to profit by the faults of his enemy.' He censures Beningsen for having detached 6000 men to Allenburg during the action. Still, when we look to the general features of the battle, we find the Russians drawn over the Aller by the temptation of having to deal with an inferior force, and then so engaged as not to have secured any adequate success until the French reinforcements arrived, and finally accumulated in such overwhelming numbers that Napoleon had little to do but to direct his columns and artillery against the Russian position, while the defenders of that position had only to retire in the best order they could maintain.

Armistice and peace were the natural, if not the necessary, consequences of the French Emperor's victory. Prior to that event it had been thought that France and its army were tired of the war, and the open declarations of their chief had confirmed the supposition. Russia, if she persisted in war, would have to wage it on her own soil. Peace, at whatever cost, would alone give the Prussian Royalties any immediate prospect of returning to Berlin. All hope of Austrian co-operation was lost for the present. England had so grievously disappointed the expectations of those who had reckoned upon her aid against France, that consideration for her interests would have but little

weight in the pending arrangements. There was everywhere a peace party, to whose counsels, timid, selfish, or short-sighted as they might be, the battle of Friedland had given a preponderant influence. The rapid change from one extreme to another-from bitter, unsparing hostility to friendship, confidence, and secret alliance between the principal belligerents, could hardly have been foreseen; and we read without surprise the strong, indignant expressions in which Sir Robert has recorded his disgust and reprobation. His generous and sanguine nature recoiled from those scenes of shameless hypocrisy which were exhibited on the waters of the Niemen, and in the festive meetings at Tilsit.

Our author's narrative is well worthy of perusal and serious meditation in the part to which we now refer. 'What a lesson,' he exclaims, 'do these proceedings afford to princes and to mankind! How necessary for the honour of Sovereigns is it that Ministers should be not only honest but brave.'

He states a little further on, that the Emperor remains at Tilsit with Buonaparte.' And again: A Captain Alison came this evening (July 1) from Tilsit, where he had seen the Emperor Alexander and Buonaparte walking arm-in-arm together in familiar conversation, and French sentinels at the doors of the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, who both lived in the town of Tilsit.' His vexation was still greater when he heard that the Queen was to set off to meet the King in order to He declares it to be the conreceive Buonaparte's visit. summation of infamy.' Having occasion to mention Baron Hardenberg,' he states, apparently on the Baron's authority, that 'Buonaparte had at the first moment insisted on his dismissal; and when the King urged a plea in his favour, he repeated frequently, "Je suis vindicatif. J'aime la revanche." One would not suppose,' he adds, that Siberia and arbitrary power existed within the boundaries of the Russian empire. Such bold language, and such indignant sentiments at the late peace, I never heard even in my own country when we made the disgraceful peace of Amiens."

On the 9th of August he writes from St. Petersburg, having posted thither from Mittan:

'I am determined,' he says, 'while here to live chiefly with Russians, and not to do as most of the English travellers here do-associate with my countrymen. The reason is, that they have prejudices against the sober habits of foreigners which I do not share, and they prefer the bottle to any advantage which the sacrifice of that indulgence would ensure.'

He dined with the Emperor at Kamenoistrow, and met with so

gracious

gracious a reception that his personal sense of the kindness controlled, without altering, his political opinions. Let us quote his own words :

'Alexander has a good, an affectionate heart. I had frequent occasions to observe the honest agitation with which it beat when our discourse was directed to some incidents which vibrated on memory. He wants only good counsellors. But if he had less virtue, he would still command my services; for has not his conduct to me been one series of honouring friendship? Was ever individual more distinguished or more warmly cherished by a sovereign, when there was neither high desert nor secret service?'

On the 1st of September he took charge of despatches for England, and, after a fatiguing overland journey, more than one sea-passage from point to point, and finally, a boisterous voyage from Gothenberg to Harwich, delivered them in London on the 19th. He was well pleased with his reception there by Ministers, and in particular by Mr. Canning, then Foreign Secretary. On the 2nd of October he was again at sea on his return to St. Petersburg, and, as usual, the sport of winds and waves. Gothenberg, Stockholm, and Abo, were his principal relays. He reached St. Petersburg in less than three weeks from Yarmouth. Some mysterious expressions imply that he was more than the bearer of despatches. Perhaps he had to convey some confidential communication from Mr. Canning to the Emperor's own ear. But, whatever his mission may have been, it neither interfered with his social recreations, nor prevented his being the bearer to London, two or three weeks later, of Alexander's hostile intentions against England. Once more he had to contend with tempestuous elements by water, with dreadful roads and crazy vehicles by land; but energy and resolution overcame all obstructions, and on the 2nd of December, by four in the morning, he was at Mr. Canning's bedside with the announcement of a Russian war.

We now approach that period in our author's eventful career when he was placed in a different field of action, and brought into near connection with one, whose triumphant progress in Portugal and Spain renewed the hopes of Europe, and finally reversed the fate of those Powers which had most suffered under the ascendancy of France. Our knowledge of the transactions in which he was there engaged can only be derived from the same general sources whence the occurrences of the time flow with more or less fulness into the pages of the historian. We are no longer attended by the lights of his personal narrative. We are not aware that any special work has been devoted to his co-operative exertions in the Peninsula. Thither, in 1808, he

was

was ordered to proceed, for the purpose of raising a Portuguese legion; and it was under circumstances of no common difficulty that he accomplished that important object. Invested as Brigadier-General with the command of the army of Portugal, he moved with his legion into Spain, facilitated the retreat of General Romana, and checked for a time the advance of Marshal Soult from Oporto. Lisbon was thus preserved from evacuation till the arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley. In January, 1809, he was entrusted with the command of a detached corps, and rendered such effective services by manoeuvring on Madrid, as to obtain the most flattering approbation from that great commander. He had soon, however, to seek employment elsewhere. Our army went into winter quarters, and his legion was absorbed in the new construction of the Portuguese army. On returning to England he was made one of the King's aides-de-camp.

After an interval of about two years he was appointed, on his own application, to a special service by Lord Wellesley; and in March of the ensuing year he received his instructions from Lord Castlereagh, who had succeeded to the administration of the foreign department. He was to go out with our new ambassador to the Porte, and to consider himself as entirely attached to Mr. Liston's mission.' 'You are,' says Lord Castlereagh, to regulate your conduct by his orders, and with him alone to correspond.' The rank of Brigadier-General in the British army was a well-earned feather in his cap.

The time of his arrival at Constantinople was one of deep and solemn interest. Napoleon, at the head of a fabulous army, and with two-thirds of Europe at his back, was on the point of invading Russia. England, almost alone, and weary of coalitions, awaited in brave but breathless attention what seemed to be the last act of the grand revolutionary drama. She was still formally at war with the Russian empire. Her representative in Turkey had secretly, and without instructions, mediated a peace between the Emperor and the Sultan. At the request of the Porte he had taken upon himself to open a correspondence with the Russian authorities at Bucharest. The treaty was concluded on the 12th of May, O.S., and the Russian officer who bore it to Constantinople was lodged in the palace of the British Embassy. The Turks, who gave us their confidence, had enlisted their fears in the service of France. With the sea at our disposal, we were almost wholly excluded from the ports of the Continent. Austria, our best friend at heart, was powerless for good; and, by a strange caprice of fortune, an Austrian princess had given an heir to the conqueror's throne. The war, so gloriously maintained by Wellington, occasioned a vast expense, and was carried on against

against fearful odds. Our national debt was increasing at a formidable rate, and the boldest of our statesmen began to look forward with anxious forebodings. No one could then perceive that the bolt of an avenging Providence was already launched against the towering colossus which bestrode the ruins of so many states in Central Europe, and that the yet unlighted torch, which was to drive the victorious battalions of France out of Moscow, would, a few months later, prove the signal of its entire overthrow.

Napoleon began the war, which he had long meditated, by crossing the Russian frontier, and occupying Kowno, on the 24th of June, 1812. Alexander on the following day accepted his challenge by a declaration of war, addressed from Wilna, to his army. The news reached Pera on the 17th of July. Mr. Liston decided that Wilson should go to the Russian headquarters. The Porte and the Russian ambassador concurred in this step. Some delay, however, took place. The Turks, habitually formal and slow, had some political motives for not being in a hurry. Our Brigadier-General employed the interval, not, it may be presumed, without his ambassador's sanction, in visiting the principal authorities, whether native or foreign, and inculcating upon them his own views of what should be done. He writes at Schumla on the 30th of July, at Bucharest on the 1st of August, at St. Petersburg on the 27th.

On his way to St. Petersburg he had communicated personally with the Grand Vizier; he had conferred with Admiral Tchitchakoff, who, strangely enough, was then in command of the Russian forces on the Danube; he had waited on Count Barclay de Tolly at Smolensko, and there renewed his friendly intercourse with Prince Bagrathion and other well-known officers of high rank.

The purport of his various talks and conferences can only be guessed by the readers of the Private Journal.' Sir Robert had information to seek as well as propositions to urge. Indeed, his commission, according to Lord Castlereagh's instruction, was specially confined to the former duty. His sphere of action acquired in practice a much wider extension. He states in his 'Narrative of Events,' that he was charged to press respectively on the Grand Vizier and Russian Commander certain points conducive to the maintenance of peace between Russia and Turkey; and Mr. Liston, in acknowledging his reports, which are given in the appendix, approves fully of their contents. However enterprising, self-reliant, and eager for distinction, he could hardly fail to employ his ability and experience in the right direction. It might, perhaps, have been more agreeable to

a man